Digapahandi: Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) at Digapahandi in Ganjam district seems to be playing the role of a silent observer in the ongoing mass protest and strike by contractual workers.
Sources said the BSNL contractual employees have not been paid their monthly wages for five months. Though they have been complaining to the authorities nothing has happened. Finding no other way, the contractual staff had launched a mass protest May 20 and it has been continuing since then.
The employees of 15 telephone exchanges in Chikiti, Digapahandi, Sanakhemundi block in Ganjam district and Mohan block in Gajapati district are taking part in the protest.
“Without payment it is very difficult for us to support our families,” said one of the contractual employees.
Meanwhile, the AITUC labour union has expressed its support to the striking staff. AITUC Ganjam district unit president visited the mass protest point and discussed the issue with the employees. AITUC members— Budheswar Gouda, Rajkishore Das, Santosh Bisoi, Prafulla Panigrahi, Sunil Mallick, Pradeep Gouda, Simanchal Gouda and Sankarsan Nayak— said that it was decided to intensify the strike if the contractual workers’ pending demands were not fulfilled by the BSNL.
The demands include payment of pending wages, no retrenchment of employees and pay revision as per the recommendations of the Seventh Pay Commission of the Central government.
When departmental engineer Sanjay Kumar Patra was asked about this, he replied, “We have informed our higher authority about the demands of the contractual employees” admitting that it is impossible to work in an institution without wage.
PNN