Chandigarh, 10 August (Trinew)
The government has again started the exercise to end the strike of the clerks which was going on since July 5 last month. In this episode, on Thursday in Chandigarh, CM Manohar Lal Khattar held a meeting with the delegation of office bearers of Clerk Association and Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh. It is said that the meeting took place in a very positive atmosphere. Now after August 15, there will be a final meeting once again. An announcement can also be made in it that what the clerks will get from this strike.
Even before this, the association’s meeting with the officials has been held thrice. The clerks are demanding that their basic pay be increased from Rs 19 thousand 900 to Rs 35 thousand 400. An offer has been made by the government to increase the basic pay of the clerks to 21 thousand 700 in the earlier meetings. Even after this the clerk did not agree and continued the strike. The clerks argue that this hike is not going to benefit them.
This is because the clerks who have been appointed in 2020 also, after the increment and DA hike, their basic pay has already exceeded 21 thousand 700. On Thursday, the meeting of the first association office bearers was held with the CMO and the officials of the Finance Department. After this, he had a meeting with Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar in the late evening. Additional Chief Secretary of Finance Department Anurag Rastogi, Principal Secretary to CM V Umashankar and OSD Jawahar Yadav were present in the meeting.
Clerks also have high expectations from the meeting. If sources are to be believed, the government has agreed to increase the basic pay of the clerks, but it has been kept secret as to how much their basic pay will be. The issue of increase in basic pay is also stuck because the clerks want the increase in basic pay to be implemented from January 2016. And the government wants to implement the hike from now itself. Some agreement has also been reported regarding the increase in the allowances of the clerks.