In hot pursuit of 7th Pay : Avoidable cease work strike
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: March 23 2018 -
Cease work strike. This particular term was not used when the BJP led Government came to power riding on the slogan of making Manipur a bandh and blockade free State.
The BJP did not promise a ‘cease work strike free Manipur’, but what is the difference between a cease work strike and a bandh or a blockade, is a question the BJP led Government should sit down and seriously try to tackle.
This question has been raised in the backdrop of the fact that the JAC of AMTUC and AMGEO has launched a cease work strike on the failure of the State Government to implement the 7th Pay recommendation, despite the Vision Document of the BJP which said that if voted to power it would implement the 7th Pay.
The same promise was also sounded audibly while campaigning for the Assembly election in the early part of 2017.
So has the BJP gone back on its words or is it a question of promising the moon and failing to deliver when it matters ?
Or did the BJP fail to seriously study the financial condition of the State so much so that it promised the 7th Pay and today after completing its first year in office, it is not in a position to deliver on its earlier promise ?
These are questions which the BJP led Government should sit down and deliberate upon, for promises should not just be made to garner some votes or support in the run up to an election.
It is also important to question whether the State Government seriously put up the demand of the Government employees before the Prime Minister when he visited the State on March 16 ?
This is where the sincerity of the State Government can be put to test.
Things may not have come to such a pass if only the Prime Minister had referred to the 7th Pay.
He need not have announced the implementation of the 7th Pay but surely even some words on why the State Government may not be in a position to implement the 7th Pay would have gone down well with quite a number of Government employees.
That this did not happen is what has led to the poser of whether the demand of the employees was sincerely put before Narendra Modi or not.
The State Government employees have reasons to be peeved.
This is not so much about whether the 7th Pay should be implemented or not but on how the State Government has been taking the points raised by the employees.
In the first place, the BJP misled them in the run up to the Assembly election.
Secondly it is not clear whether the demand of the employees has been put forward to the Prime Minister sincerely or not.
And remember Tripura which went to polls just recently and installed a BJP led Government there has adopted a Cabinet decision to implement the 7th Pay.
A change in approach to the issue at hand is what is called for.
If what the JAC had to say is correct, then even the Chief Secretary is understood to have told them that the 7th Pay is a political question and the Fitment Committee has a limited role.
One can understand the financial condition of the Government, but yet at the same time, the present cease work strike could have been avoided if only the matter was dealt with in a sensitive manner by the State Government.
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