Manipur Pay Protest Starts

A deserted government office on Saturday.

Imphal, Jan 18 : Manipur government employees today decided to intensify their agitation over non-implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission recommendations, despite chief minister Okram Ibobi Singh’s call for peace.

Ibobi Singh yesterday appealed to the employees to end the agitation and concentrate on their duties, as the financial year was approaching its end.

He said his government would not be able to pay arrears according to the pay commission’s recommendations (from January 1, 2006), but promised enhanced pay from April.

The Manipur cabinet had earlier taken the decision to pay the increased remuneration by April.

“The government cannot think only for the employees, but also should think about the 24 lakh people in the state,” Ibobi Singh, who is also the finance minister, had said.

The appeal came after employees under the banner of joint administrative council launched an agitation yesterday, paralysing all government offices.

The demands raised by the employees include rectification of pay anomalies, extension of age for retirement from 59 to 60, lifting of ban on direct recruitment and die-in-harness scheme. They have also demanded setting up of a task force on the lines of the Border Road Organisation to provide employment to jobless youths and regularisation of muster roll, casual, ad hoc and work-charge workers.

The agitating leaders today met at their office and discussed the appeal by the chief minister.

“We have decided not only to continue the agitation, but also to intensify it,” Ch. Chandramani Singh, the secretary general of the council, said.

The council did not disclose its strategy, but the employees are expected to continue to campaign to prevent other employees from working in their offices tomorrow.

The protesters are also expected to campaign in the secretariat, which has not joined the agitation till now as the staff are not members of the administrative council, the apex body of employees’ unions.

Essential services, including health, power and water supply departments, are still exempted from the agitation.

About 90 per cent of more than 60,000 government employees belonging to Grade III and IV are members of the council.

The council has now threatened to bring even the essential services under the purview of the strike.