Not over 7th Pay Commission demands, this state's roadways staff went on strike, here is why

7th Pay Commission: While most of the government employees across India are making demands based on 7th Pay Commission, this is a state where employees are asking for the implementation of the 6th Pay Commission in their favour. The state is Punjab. So, even as central government employees want their pay to be hiked by a fitment factor of 3.68 time after they got a salary hike based on 7th pay commission report recommendations, here is another group that is looking for benefits too and for that they were willing to take the extreme step of going on a strike to highlight their problems and try and pressure the authorities to give-in to their demands. As many as 3,000 contractual employees went on strike today. As a result of the strike bus services were not available not just in the state but even the inter-state services were hit and this was inclusive of the one to the national capital New Delhi.

The Punjab roadways staff had gone on a strike, after having held one in February too, even as the state was going through the prevailing heatwave. Needless to say, it left the public stranded at bus stands and they had no choice but to take private transport to reach their offices and homes.

"We have been fighting for our rights for the past several years. But neither the previous government nor the present paid heed to our demands," Chander Shekhar, vice president of Road Transport Workers Federation, was quoted as saying by PTI.

The Roadways strike hit cities like Moga, Ludhiana, Jalandhar and Amritsar districts. A huge number of Punjab Roadways and PUNBUS buses remained off the roads on Monday, reported IANS. The size of the problem can be gauged from the fact that as many as 1,500 buses went off the roads.

The roadways staff held their protest at various bus depots and offices. Notably, the staff also warned of taking further action in the future in case their demands were ignored by the government. Reportedly, their salaries are much less than those of other staff members.

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Notably, central government had agreed to hike the salaries of Gramin Dak Sevaks after they went on strike to remove anomalies that had arisen due to 7th Pay Commission report implementation for other Postal department employees.