The Sanjha Mulazim Manch, an umbrella body of 153 unions of Punjab government employees, on Sunday, announced to hold a rally in Dhuri, the chief minister’s home constituency, on October 10, seeking clarity on the state finance department’s September 23 order announcing an 8% dearness allowance (DA) accrual for the employees of state departments, boards, corporations as well as those posted in the districts.
Following the meeting, the employees announced that they would end the protest. The employees also announced that they should be informed at least a week in advance of any meeting with the government and that their programmes already announced would not be postponed. Mann had also assured employees to hold discussions on their other demands in the first week of October. The employees had been protesting since August.
The announcement comes days after a September 18 meeting between chief minister Bhagwant Mann, cabinet ministers and office-bearers of various employee unions, at which the state government offered two DA instalments of 4% each. “There is no mention of the arrears in the DA announced on September 23. So to seek clarity on the matter, the employees will hold district-level meetings on September 30 (Wednesday) and a rally of all the employees on October 10 in Sangrur,” said Sahil Sharma, general secretary of the civil secretariat employees’ union. He added that a mock Vidhan Sabha session on September 30 has been deferred for now. On August 27, they were called for a meeting with the chief minister in Jalandhar, but Mann declined to meet them, asking the employees to resume duties as a precondition for talks.
“We have been demanding 18% DA and arrears pending since 2023, and there are other demands which so far have not been discussed,” said Sharma.
The DA accrual will involve an additional expenditure of ₹ 231 crore a month, according to senior government officials. However, at a meeting in Ludhiana on Sunday, the employee leaders alleged that the September 23 order was an attempt to delink the state’s DA from the central pattern. Because two instalments of 4% each are pending since July 1, 2023, and January 1, 2024, involving arrears of 39 and 33 months, respectively, they said the order did not clarify from which date the DA would be paid,.
