The Hindu 29.12.2010
Municipal staff stage protest
Staff Reporter
PUDUCHERRY: Employees of the Puducherry Municipality on Tuesday
staged an in-house protest at their offices and refused to work
following non-payment of salary for the month of December.
Though most of the employees turned up at their respective offices in
the morning, they refused to do any work and staged a walkout in the
afternoon demanding immediate disbursal of salaries.
According to the employees, though people working in other government
departments had been paid salary on time, the officials had cited lack
of funds as reason and delayed the salary for the municipal staff.
K. Ashokan, general secretary of the Confederation of Puducherry
State Municipal and Commune Panchayats Employees Association, said that
the municipality had been seeking special grants from the government
every month for the payment of salaries owing to a decrease in its
revenue over the last few years.
The drop in revenue was largely attributed to the exemption of
entertainment tax for movies with Tamil titles and slack attitude
towards collection of property taxes, he said.
Mr. Ashokan said that a protest rally would be taken out on Wednesday
and the employees would abstain from work till salaries are paid.
According to Commissioner of Puducherry Municipality K.T. Alagiri, all
efforts are being made to disburse salaries before December 31. He said
that apart from drop in revenue, contracts awarded for cleaning of
garbage also had an impact on the overall financial position of the
municipality.
Around 600 employees joined the protest on Tuesday, which included
sanitary workers, daily wage workers and office staff of the
municipality.
