Wednesday, 07 April 2021 | PNS | Dehradun
In an attempt to intensify their protest against the Uttarakhand government, the protesting outsourced employees of Uttarakhand Purva Sainik Kalyan Nigam Limited (UPNL) began an indefinite hunger strike from Tuesday. The protestors said that they are disappointed that despite making promises to work towards the issues of the outsourced employees, nothing has been initiated by the State government so far.
According to the president of the UPNL Employees Union, Kushagra Joshi, the government had stated that a subcommittee has been formed for the consideration of the issues raised by contractual UPNL employees about two weeks ago but since then, no initiative was taken by the government. According to him, they have been protesting peacefully for the past 44 days at the protest site in Ekta Vihar and the government has still failed to take any positive decision even after promising it last month.
The chief convenor of the union, Mahesh Bhatt has also written a letter to the chief secretary of Uttarakhand to inform him about the indefinite hunger strike of the protesting employees. Bhatt wrote in the letter that none of the representatives of the association has been called to have any dialogue with the government regarding the issues of the protestors since the government constituted the subcommittee on March 25. He further mentioned that the government recently terminated the services of 59 UPNL employees from the tax department which has shaken their faith in the intentions of the State government. He stressed that the lack of protestors’ trust in the government is the main reason due to which four protesting employees, Mahesh Bhatt, Garima Dobhal, Yogendra Badoni and Deepa Negi started the indefinite hunger strike from Tuesday.
The association also made it clear that it will not back out until the government takes concrete decision on their demands.
