WB: State Government Employees Hold Day-Long Strike Demanding DA

Kolkata:  After nearly five decades, West Bengal’s  government employees took part in a successful day-long strike demanding their Dearness Allowance (DA)  and  clarity in appointments to the vacancies in government posts in West Bengal. 

The strike call was given by the Coordination Committee of state Government employees along with Joint Sangrami Manch and the strike was successful despite the threat by the government of treating the day as Dies Non. Employees remained absent at several places like the Writers building, the State Secretariat at Nabanna, Khadya Bhavan and Kolkata Corporation. The scene at the  District secretariat was starker as employees stayed outside their offices and resorted to picketing outside their office. 

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee after assuming power in the state had declared all strikes to be illegal and took strong penal actions against anyone who participated in strikes. Interestingly, she had given numerous strike calls, about 13 times in three years on the Singur issue in the state before she formed the Trinamool Congress (TMC) government in the state.

The State Government employees were joined by the Students Federation of India (SFI) activists who- along with the demand of providing DA to Government employees, demanded letting the campus elections be held in the state. Previously, SFI had called for a march to the State Assembly but the police had declared the march to be illegal. However, this did not deter the SFI activists from reaching the Assembly gate. Police arrested dozens of SFI activists  to stall the activists from entering the assembly premises.

“Here is a government which declines to pay DA at all. The government, in its prayer before the Calcutta High Court in a filed affidavit, declined to give DA to its employees, citing it as a non-mandatory exercise to give DA at the central rate. It also refused to admit that any DA of the employees is pending with the state government. Around 35% of DA is already pending with the government, which means an average employee is losing Rs 12,000 to 18,000 per month. Giving DA is an exercise based on the consumer price index, and it’s calculated using a scientific method,” Biswajit Gupta Choudhury, General Secretary of the Coordination Committee told NewsClick. He added that the Central Government will announce an additional 4% DA, which will take the quantum of pending DA of all employees who receive their pay from the state exchequer from 35% to 39%.

Other demands of the strike along with the payment of pending DA and filling vacant posts with clarity, are the regularisation of casual employees, eliminating divisive politics in the state and reinstatement of democracy. It has also been decided that both groups will take up joint programmes considering the unified strike of government employees, teachers, and local body employees on March 10.

Many schools and colleges also remained closed as  employees and teachers joined the strike. Nearly 90 to 95% of employees took part in the strike whisking away the repressive circular of Dies Non, issued by the state administration. They also reported that the entire treasury of West Bengal did not function due to the strike.