Paid holiday today to workers of all shifts in industries

Hyderabad: Superseding its earlier order, the State government on Sunday issued fresh directive applying paid holiday to workers of all shifts in industries on May 13, the polling day for the Lok Sabha elections and the by-election for the Secunderabad Cantonment constituency.

Earlier the government had issued GO 222 applying the paid holiday to workers in all shifts on the polling day. The same rule was applied during the Assembly elections. The Election Commission had on May 1 announced it as a paid holiday to workers. However, the NASSCOM had requested the government to restrict the paid holiday to only those working in two shifts. The government responded positively. A memo was issued on May 2 without considering the EC direction. The CPM State secretary Tammineni Veerabhadram and executive member DG Narasimha Rao, in a letter to State Chief Electoral Officer Vikas Raj said people working in Hyderabad and in adjacent areas have their votes not in their place of work, but in villages. If the paid holiday is scraped, those working in night shift will be deprived of utilising their voting right.

They demanded the government to implement the paid holiday for workers in all shifts on May 13. Following this the government issued a fresh orders applying the paid holiday to workers in all shifts on May 12.