Will push for 22% DA to employees: SAD

CHANDIGARH : The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) has announced that it would start an agitation against the Congress party government in Punjab for release of 22% dearness allowance to state employees. The party has also demanded the immediate release of the Sixth Punjab Pay Commission Report and the regularisation of 27,000 employees.

“The Congress government must come clean on why it has not been releasing four instalments of DA amounting to ₹4,000 crore,” said former finance minister Parminder Singh Dhindsa, adding that even as the fifth instalment of the DA was due now, the government had just “approved” the release of one instalment of only 6%.

“This is a pittance considering that this approval amounts to only a 2% increase on the recommendations of the Seventh Central Pay Commission,” Dhindsa added.

Asking the state government not to befool employees like it had betrayed farmers, youth and dalits, Dhindsa added that the government should give interim relief to employees immediately by hiking the basic pay by 10% after merging DA with it. He said his party would launch an agitation for securing the rights of employees.

The Akali leader said employees had also been demanding regularisation of services of all 27,000 contractual employees who had been identified by the previous SAD-BJP government and for whom the Punjab Ad hoc, Contractual, Daily wage, Temporary, Work Charged and Outsourced Employees’ Welfare Bill, 2016, was also passed after convening a special assembly session.