The Hindu : Govt. offers DA, but talks fail

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jun 28, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Tamil Nadu

Govt. offers DA, but talks fail

By Our Special Correspondent

The Chief Minister, Jayalalithaa, holding talks with the Tamil Nadu Government Employees Unions and Teachers Associations at the Secretariat in Chennai on Friday.

Chennai June 27. Talks between the Chief Minister, Jayalalithaa, and key State employees unions, ended in a stalemate today, despite the Government announcing full payment of dearness allowance hike and gratuity in cash.

After a one-and-half-hour discussion with over 30 representatives of unions, the Chief Minister conceded four of their demands involving an additional expenditure of Rs.515.84 crores, but turned down their main plea for rolling back cuts in pension and commutation benefits. Hence, the JACTTEO-GEO and COTA-GEO, umbrella organisations, comprising at least 90 unions, decided to stick to their plan of an indefinite strike from July 2.

Later, Ms. Jayalalithaa, in a statement, announced that the one per cent DA impounded last year in the Provident Fund would be released with effect from July 1. The three per cent hike in DA announced in the Assembly for this year would also be given from next month. In effect, the 12.5 lakh employees, including teachers, would get a pay hike ranging from Rs. 120 to Rs. 800 from July 1 and the cash-strapped Government would spend an additional Rs. 255.71 crores annually.

Besides, the government order, issued in March this year, granting only 50 per cent of the gratuity in cash and the remaining in the form of small savings scrips would be withdrawn. Instead, the entire gratuity would be given in cash for employees who retired on/after April 1, 2003. This would involve another cash expenditure of Rs.260.13 crores, the Chief Minister said.

Also, pay arrears totalling Rs. 36 crores for workers of noon meal centres and anganwadis from January 1996 to March 1998 would be cleared.

She appealed to the unions to give up their strike call, accepting the concessions offered by the Government, inspite of the severe financial crunch. But a JACTTEO-GEO spokesman said that the employees were not satisfied with the outcome of the talks, as the same concessions were offered during April talks too. Also, while the State budget announced the DA hike from April 1, the Chief Minister offered it only from July 1. "It is disappointing and we will go ahead with the indefinite strike," he asserted.

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