Secretariat staff sit on dharna at MPDO offices in Anantapur
The Hindu
The district Collector had warned the Secretariat employees not to resort to agitation and continue the vaccination and OTS scheme implementation but many of the employees staged protests.
A 72-hour pen-down agitation by village and ward Secretariat staff began at all MPDO offices in Anantapur district on Monday morning with the staff members sitting on a dharna holding placards.
At Bukkarayasamudram, Rapthadu, Obuldevaracheruvu, Rayadurg and other mandals, the Secretariat staff wore black badges and raised slogans against the State government for neglecting their service conditions and not implementing a pay-scale as promised at the time of appointment.
“A majority of us have completed two years of probation period getting only ₹15,000 per month. As per our service conditions, we are supposed to get a pay scale of ₹16,400 from October 2021, but the government at the time of announcing the Pay Revision Commission (PRC) for other employees, extended our probation period by six months and now want to implement PRC from July 1 instead of January 1, 2022, like other employees,” said the agitating employees.
In 2021, five women from Mayithara, four of them MGNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act) workers, found a common ground in their desire to create a sustainable livelihood by growing vegetables. Rajamma M., Mary Varkey, Valsala L., Elisho S., and Praseeda Sumesh, aged between 70 and 39, pooled their savings, rented a piece of land and began their collective vegetable farming journey under the Deepam Krishi group.