Mohali, May 31:- The Old Scale, Old Pension and Allowances Restoration Front has raised the major financial demands of the employees, including the new pay scales based on the central pattern implemented to exploit the employees of various departments, institutions and boards recruited after July 17, 2020 on a large scale, not to give all financial benefits from the year 2018 to 1007 SSA/Mid-Day Meal employees regularized from Samagra to the Education Department as per the letter of the Finance Department, not to cancel the new pension system related to market risks, stop 18% pending dearness allowance of the employees, not to restore 37 types of cut allowances including rural and border area allowances, issue show cause notices of termination to 4161 masters, 6635 ETTs and hundreds of teachers of the remaining recruitments under the name of recast lists.
A state rally was held in Mohali against the non-regularization of associate teachers and computer teachers, including raw employees, under the civil service rules. After gathering in front of Gurdwara Amb Sahib, a march was held towards the Chief Minister's residence, Chandigarh. On this occasion, the Chandigarh Police lathi-charged the employees, in which many employees were seriously injured. They continued to move forward while enduring repeated water cannons.
Addressing the employees who attended the rally in large numbers, the conveners of the front Vikram Dev Singh, Gurdeep Singh Bassi, Sandeep Gill, Atinderpal Singh Ghagga, Kuldeep Singh Sangrur, Balkaur Singh Mann, Surinderpal Soni, Balihar Singh Balli, and Shalindar Kamboj said that before the formation of the government in Punjab, many promises were made by the Aam Aadmi Party to the employees of Punjab like other sections, but in the last four and a half years, the Punjab government has badly ignored all the financial demands of the employees, and has even run away from its primary responsibility of paying dearness allowance to the employees.
Mahinder Kaurwali, Inder Sukhdeep Singh, Gurjant Singh Hariau, Rajinder Singh Sandha, Bagga Khudal alleged that the Punjab government's act of issuing show cause notices to 253 teachers related to 4161 master cadre recruitment to terminate their services is condemnable and the future of teachers should be secured by withdrawing this notice. They said that the AAP government of Punjab is working on a policy of contradiction.
According to which on the one hand, there was opposition to taking away the Punjab salary pattern from the employees of Chandigarh before the formation of the government, on the other hand, even after four and a half years of the formation of the government in the state, it is economically exploiting the new employees by giving them a 40 percent lower salary scale (Rs. 31000/-), but recently, the salary of 1007 employees regularized in the education department has also been cut under the guise of these scales.
The leaders of the front said that while the BJP government at the center remains the biggest obstacle in the restoration of old pension, the Punjab government has avoided restoring the old pension based on GPF as per the rules of 1972 despite issuing an incomplete notification on November 18, 2022 for the restoration of the old pension system. Along with this, the Punjab government has not yet released the pending report of the Sixth Punjab Pay Commission, but under the guise of reviewing the allowances of employees and the benefits of ACP, etc., for the last four and a half years.
Apart from this, thousands of raw teachers have been given the status of associate teachers and deprived of the benefits of regular employees, similarly, thousands of computer teachers serving under the Pictus Society have not been regularly merged in the education department, but rather exploitation continues.
Till the time of writing, a round of talks with the Chandigarh/Mohali administration was going on. The leaders of the front made it clear to the administration that no meeting will be held without the Chief Minister.
On this occasion, besides others, the state president of the Democratic Employees Federation Punjab, Jarmanjit Singh, Manpreet Singh Faridkot, Hardeep Todarpur also addressed.