Gramin Dak Sevaks seek better benefits

Tirupati: About three lakh Gramin Dak Sevaks (GDS) of the Postal department in the country have joined hands to fight unitedly against the Central government for its indifferent attitude towards their long pending demands. 

They were on indefinite strike for the last eight days, which has resulted in the closure of more than one lakh branch post offices across the country. GDS unions have been demanding a solution for better wages and service conditions and implementation of Kamalesh Chandra Committee recommendations. 

The Union leaders were saying that about 60 per cent of the employees in the Postal department are Gramin Dak Sevaks and more than that percentage of Post Offices are GDS Branch Post Offices.

The leaders of GDS Unions were arguing that the striking employees were responsible for 85 per cent of the revenue earnings in the department and yet they were subjected to step motherly attitude compared to regular Postal employees.

“We are not even treated as Postal employees and getting very nominal wages for the same work which the regular employees are doing and getting substantially higher amounts” said the organising secretary of AP Circle of GDS Union E Sivarami Reddy. 

Speaking to The Hans India, he lamented that for the same work the departmental employees were getting more than Rs 30,000 whereas GDS were getting less than half of that. By virtue of seniority, a sub postmaster can get about Rs 60,000 whereas GDS Branch post master gets a maximum of Rs 12,000 though both perform same duties.

The basic of GDS varies between Rs 2,500 to Rs 4,700 depending on the cadre. He further added that though they were supposed to work for five hours in urban areas and three hours in rural areas, with several targets their work load has been going up and were forced to work for eight hours along with regular employees. 

So far, four Gramin Dak Sevaks have committed suicide during the last five days as they could not digest the indifferent attitude of the Central government he said. Out of the four two belongs to Adilabad district of Telangana and one each from Maharashtra and Rajasthan.

“We are being treated as extra department employees and getting meagre wages despite heavy work load. Even, the regular postal employees have supported our cause and participated in the strike for the first three days,” observed the divisional secretary of National Federation of Postal Employees B Venkataiah.

Now, the GDS Unions have been demanding the implementation of Kamalesh Chandra Committee report on the service conditions of GDS which was submitted to the central government in November 2016. 

Among other things, the Committee recommended a minimum wage of GDS to be Rs 10,000 with a maximum of Rs 35,480 with an annual increase of 3 per cent and children’s education allowance of Rs 6,000 per annum for two children.

Though the government assured to implement the recommendations in favour of GDS no progress was made so far and with this indifferent attitude of Centre and Department of Posts, the strike became inevitable, he stated.

Deploring the attitude of the Central government, the GDS have organised huge rallies across the country on Monday and held rail roko in Chennai in which about 1,000 GDS were arrested, according to the leaders.