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| Lal Kothi |
Intensifying
its ongoing agitation, the Janmukti Asthayi Karmachari Sangathan (JAKS)
today announced it would enforce the closure of the engineering cells
of the various offices of the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration from
Monday till a solution to its demand for increasing the salary of Group
A and B employees is arrived at.
Engineers, doctors, managers and
curators, who fall under Groups A and B of the GTA, have begun an
indefinite cease-work from June 13. Their demand is enhancement of
salary as per an order issued in February 2016 by the finance department
of the state government.
“We started the agitation on June 13 and
will intensify it in phases. We have decided to close all the
engineering cells of the GTA from Monday to press our demand. We know
our decision could create problems for the general public and feel
sorry, but we request everyone to support the agitation,” said Deepak
Sharma, the JAKS spokesperson.
At the same time, Sharma said the
present deadlock had eased a bit as the GTA had initiated dialogues with
them. The GTA principal secretary and secretary, the deputy chief
executive and Sabhasads held a meeting in the afternoon with JAKS
representatives at Lal Kothi to discuss the issue. It was decided that
the principal secretary would hold talks with the state government and a
GTA delegation would leave for Kolkata soon.
“The deadlock has been broken and talks
have started. However, we will continue our agitation of assembling
outside Lal Kothi and close the engineering cells. We will also head to
Kolkata as part of the GTA delegation for talks with the state
government,” Sharma said.
The JAKS agitation reached its fifth day
today with 147 engineers, 120 school teachers, eight doctors, two
managers and one curator ceasing work. The other demand the JAKS is
spearheading is the regularisation of 5,321 workers of the GTA who were
originally on contractual basis with the now-defunct Darjeeling Gorkha
Hill Council. (EOIC)
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