SRINAGAR, Oct 2: The latest round of talks between representatives of nearly half a million employees in Jammu and Kashmir and the government over issues, which include a raise in the age of retirement, has failed.
The Joint Consultative Committee – an amalgam of employees’ unions – has now called for state-wide protests on October 10 and plan to gherao the civil secretariat on October 15.
“They had nothing to offer us today. The Chief Secretary told us that there will be a cabinet meeting on October 11, where they will take a decision on our demands. We fail to understand what they have been doing all through the year. They have not taken our issues seriously and were only resorting to delaying tactics,” said a senior JCC leader, Khurshid Alam on Monday.
Earlier this year in May and June schools and government offices were affected as the employees took to streets in a series of protests demanding regularisation of contractual workers, payment of arrears from the sixth pay commission hike besides a raise in retirement age from 58 to 60 years.
However they called off a proposed strike in July after a meeting with high ranking officials.
“Regarding casual labourers engaged, it was informed that owing to the existence of various categories, the issue requires to be verified and authenticated before it is submitted to the Cabinet Sub Committee for a policy decision,” an official spokesperson had said.
“Regarding redressal of anomalies, it was informed that as per the agreement, the Pay Anomaly Committee has been revived and it shall submit its report about the Clerical cadre and the pre-revised scale of Rs. 6500-10500 in the near future for an appropriate decision by the Government by September, 2012.”
Later that month chief minister Omar Abdullah said the government was working on a “comprehensive via medium” on the employees’ demand for increasing the retirement age.
But another senior leader of the JCC, Gafoor Dar blamed the government of using “delay tactics”.
