Employees hold march to Capt’s residence against 6th pay panel
PATIALA : Hundreds of government employees and pensioners on Thursday held a statelevel protest in Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh’s hometown Patiala against the recommendations of the Sixth Pay Commission whose report they said was “useless and anti-employee”.
The protesters under the banner of the Punjab-UT Employees and Pensioners Joint Front, also started a protest march from the local grain market to Amarinder’s residence before they were stopped by police near YPS Chowk.
Hundreds of police personnel from nearly 10 districts were deployed to maintain law and order situation in the city.
Jagdish Singh Chahal, a convener of the front, said the pay commission has come up with ambiguous recommendations the state government is not bothering to reconsider before implementing them.
“The government made false claims with the employees and pensioners of providing heft increments and allowances. Instead of increasing remunerations, the government has planned to impose salary cuts through the pay commission,” he said.
The protesters also demanded regularisation of contractual employees, reimplementation of old pension scheme and release of pending arrears of dearness allowance.
The government should stop rationalisation of posts in different departments and implement the state pay scales instead of central scales besides reducing the probation period of newly recruited employees, they said.
The protest led to traffic jams on roads, especially those leading to the chief minister‘s residence.