Assam PSU Staff to boycott polls over revised pay plea

Employees of 25 public sector undertakings (PSU) and their family members have threatened to boycott the Assembly polls if their demand for implementation of the revised payscales was not met.

The employees, under the banner of the Committee for Struggle to Revive Public Sector Undertaking, Assam, will observe a daylong non-cooperation agitation tomorrow as part of their protest.

The general secretary of the committee, Pradip Kumar Neog, today demanded the implementation of revised payscales for PSU employees with immediate effect according to the Sixth Pay Commission’s recommendations.

“If our demand is not met, more than 20,000 PSU employees and their family members across the state will boycott the forthcoming Assembly elections in protest against the discriminatory attitude of the state government towards them,” he said.

Neog said the last salary revision of the PSU employees was in 1996, which came into effect from January 1, 1998.

“For more than a decade our salary has remained the same and needs revision in view of inflation and increased prices,” he said.

Accusing the state government of adopting a divide-and-rule policy, he said Dispur was paying revised payscales to all state government employees from the financial year 2009-10.

“Out of the 30 PSUs in the state, employees of five PSUs are also being given revised salary according to the recommendations of Sixth Pay Commission,” he said.

These five PSUs are Assam Urban Water Supply and Sewerage Board, Assam Police Housing Corporation, Assam State Housing Board, Assam State Transport Corporation and Assam State Electricity Board.

The committee expressed anguish over the fact that the state government was paying revised salary to employees of loss-making PSUs like ASEB and ASTC while depriving the employees of profit-making PSUs like Assam Electronics Development Corporation Limited, Assam Indus-trial Development Corporation, Assam Government Marketing Corporation and Assam State Textbook Production and Publication Corporation.

The president of the committee, Nripen Gogoi, said after the Sixth State Pay Commission submitted its report in October 2009, the government constituted a state-level public enterprise pay committee headed by the principal secretary, home and political, Subhash Das, on January 2, 2010. The committee submitted its report on March 30 last year.

“However, instead of making the report public and implementing it, the state government set up a cabinet sub-committee to examine the report,” Gogoi said.

“The cabinet sub-committee is yet to submit its report,” he said.

Neog said they were going to burn the effigies of all the members of the cabinet sub-committee as a mark of protest.

Source : The Telegraph