Govt employees express ire over JAC leaders for giving up the fight

Tirupati: Social media platforms have been flooded by trolls and memes on NGOs Association and JAC leaders following the outcome of their discussion with the Ministers' Committee on Saturday night. The leaders announced the withdrawal of their proposed strike call as they claimed that the discussions were fruitful.

Seeing the response of their leaders without fulfilling even the main demands, disgruntled NGOs and teachers have started trolling them. The teachers associations have decided to continue their agitation and have been discussing the future course of action.

Several employees and teachers have been questioning the outcome of the agitation and the marathon discussions with the Ministers' Committee for two days. They were saying that the confidence in their leadership was lost as they ignored the main demands but still called off the strike proposal.

In particular, teachers have been expressing their anger on the leadership for achieving nothing even after discussions. Though it was called as 'PRC Sadhana Samithi,' it could not even pursue with the government to make public the PRC report submitted by Asuthosh Mishra Committee.

The leaders have failed to get even one per cent more fitment than the government announced 23 per cent. They were of the view that it was teachers' unions which gave impetus to the agitation with their call for 'Chalo Collectorate' but the JAC hijacked it.

If it goes up by about 1.5 per cent, the employees and teachers would have benefitted by one additional increment at least as they can move one 'step up' from the present scale of pay. Speaking to The Hans India, UTF State council member D Nirmala observed that on the whole they could not get anything.

Whereas the employees in urban areas were getting 20 per cent HRA before the implementation of the new PRC, it was brought down to 8 per cent and now increased to 16 per cent. "In the present scenario, we expected to get a fitment not less than the interim relief but even that could not be achieved. The problems of contract workers and RTC staff were not resolved," she averred.

UTF Chittoor district president K Muthyala Reddy also said that the decisions were not at all acceptable. A fitment on par with IR was the least expected thing but the JAC leaders failed to even get such a demand conceded by the government. Paying the arrears at the time of retirement is ridiculous. When the previous government announced IR from April 2019, the present government has not implemented that. How can the future governments agree to pay the arrears at the time of retirement?, he questioned.

Tirupati NGO Association president S Suresh Babu too felt that even one per cent hike in fitment would have benefitted all the employees. The employees were expressing strong resentment on the decisions. Balance IR amount recovery should have been completely waived off but the waiver was limited to nine months only.

But in this situation, it should be considered as a biggest achievement. At least, the HRA slabs were revised along with some other demands.