Work stalled for two weeks, Haryana govt invites protesting clerks for talks

With several services continuing to remain stalled due to the indefinite strike of government clerks, which started two weeks ago, the Haryana government has invited a delegation of the protesters for talks.

As per information, the meeting will be held at 12pm on Friday at Chandigarh and senior officials, including a principal secretary to the chief minister (CM), officer on special duty (OSD) to the CM and other officials from the finance department, will attend the meeting.

CM’s OSD Jawahar Yadav, who had met the protesters earlier this month, also tweeted that members of the Clerk Association have been called for talks on Friday.

Around 15,000 clerks of Haryana government department had declared their indefinite strike on July 5, seeking revision of the pay-scale to ₹35,400 against the current ₹19,900. They had started a dharna outside Karnal’s mini-secretariat after failing to get any assurance from the government.

Senior officials dealing with the issue, however, said that providing a pay scale of ₹35,400 to clerks was not possible and they were trying to convince them to call off the strike.

The protesting clerks, however, stated that they will continue the strike until the government accepts their demand and brings their salaries at par with their Punjab counterparts.

Pradeep Parjapati, Karnal district president of Clerical Association Welfare Society, said, “Yes, we have been called for another rounds of talks but our only demand is a revision of our basic pay to ₹35,400 as several officials of our grade are already getting it. The strike will continue till the demand is accepted.”

Services hit, public inconvenienced

The strike has not only taken a toll on government’s revenue generation but also caused inconvenience to the people as several services like registration of vehicles, land deeds, issuing of driving licences have been stalled.

“I have come for the fourth time to the Indri tehsil for registry of a plot but I have been turned away and told that we will have to wait until the strike is over. We don’t know when the strike will end,” said Ajay Kumar of Indri of Karnal.

The government has made alternate arrangements for the online work but most of the Saral Kendras and tehsil offices wore a deserted look as the computer operators have no access to the login IDs of the clerks to complete the work.