Normal work was badly affected in Jammu and Kashmir civil secretariat on Wednesday after the employees went on a pen down strike against “delay in implementation of certain decisions taken by J&K chief secretary on December 24 last year”.
The pen down strike was called by Jammu & Kashmir Civil Secretariat Employees’ Coordination Committee. President of the committee, Ghulam Rasool Mir said the employees were expecting the government would address their long pending issues including restoration of KAS slots in favour of the feeding service cadre, revocation of SRO 20, resolution of accommodation issue of move employees, etc.
“The General Administration Department is deliberately delaying the files,” Mir alleged, adding that the chief secretary had earlier agreed in principle to the demands of the employees and promised that they will be addressed within 15 days last December.
The protesting employees said that they had pinned hope on the Chief Secretary BVR Subrahmanyam, but some middle rung officers are “playing mischief”.
Meanwhile, following assurance and constitution of a three-member committee by the Government, to look into the grievances and demands of the employees, the Secretariat Employees Coordination Committee has suspended the strike for fifteen days and reiterated that no compromise will be made on the demands raised by the Committee.
The employees had called strike today and staged massive demonstration in the Secretariat premises despite heavy rains.
The officers in feeding services for KAS Cadre (an amalgam of 18 service/departments) of Kashmir division, meanwhile met today at Srinagar and discussed the issue of induction made by the Government yesterday in which 40 slots were allotted to direct recruits and 13 to promoted group.
The officers said that the move of the GAD to allot more slots to direct recruits instead of balancing the slot share, as assured by the Chief Secretary, is “breach of trust”.
The officers resolved to extend every support to the Secretariat Employees Coordination Committee for achieving their goal.