Members of a federation comprising Tamil Nadu Village Administrative Officers (VAOs) Association, Tamil Nadu Revenue Village Employees Association and Tamil Nadu Government Village Assistants Association staged a demonstration at Kalavasal here on Monday to attract the attention of the State Government to their demands.
The protestors demanded release of fresh district-wise seniority list by including the names of junior VAOs, creation of a joint seniority list for VAOs and Junior Assistants in the Revenue Department for grant of promotions, implementation of pay scale for revenue village assistants and payment of salary for the period between February 16 and 28 of 2011 when they resorted to strike.
Promoting Revenue Village Assistants on the basis of their educational qualifications, reintroduction of old pension scheme after discontinuing the current contributory pension scheme, increasing the daily ‘batta’ of Rs. 6 given to village assistants and paving way for promoting the VAOs once in five years were the other demands of the gathering.
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S. Sekar, Madurai district secretary of TNVAOA, said that many VAOs in the State had been continuing in the same post for more than three decades.
Therefore, the government should promote those who had completed 10 years of service as Special Revenue Inspectors, those with 20 years of experience as Special Deputy Tahsildars and those with 30 years of service as Special Tahsildars.
“The rule which mandates that VAOs should reside in the villages where they are posted should also be relaxed and the VAOs should be allowed to stay in the radius of about eight kilometres. This rule was being misused by some higher officials to harass the VAOs,” the secretary alleged.
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