Hyderabad: For the first time, all Telangana employees associations have put up a united fight against the TRS government.
They held a massive public meeting “Sakala Udyogula Maha Sabha” at Saroor Nagar stadium on Sunday demanding the state government to resolve their long-pending issues. If the government failed to act, they said they will be forced to intensify their agitation like they did during the struggle for Telangana statehood.
Over 100 associations extended support to the meeting and participated in large numbers from all the 31 districts. They said if Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao abolishes CPS, employees at the state and national level will support his Third Front.
They said employees were never forced to hold a public meeting on their demands in the last 70 years and if the CM fails to address their issues, he may lose the support of the employees forever.
At one point tension prevailed in when employees leader and TRS MLA V. Srinivas Goud addressed the meeting.
Mr Goud asked unions to maintain cordial relations with the Chief Minister and it is not proper to blame the four-year-old TRS government for their problems. He said CPS was not brought by KCR and blamed the Centre was not cooperating with then on any issue. Employees objected to Mr Goud’s speech and dema-nded him to leave the venue.
TNGOs president Karem Ravinder Reddy, who lead the agitation, said the government failed to resolve their eight major demands even after coming to power nearly four years ago.
Mr Reddy said the abolition of constributory pension scheme (CPS) and restoration of old pension scheme (OPS) was their main demand.
They also demanded the government to take transfers to staff in April, which were held up in Undivided AP eight years ago, promotions, gratuity and family pension to CPS staff, permanent allotment to staff working on 'order to serve', raising of retirement age from 58 years to 60 years and setting up of new Pay Revision Commission to revise salaries for staff, regularisation of contract staff and minimum salary of Rs 20,000 per month from them.
