State postal division joins nationwide strike; service affected

Our Correspondent
Kohima, Jan. 7 (EMN): The state postal service took to hit on Wednesday as the staff from the department joined the nationwide strike called by the central trade union protesting against Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government by staging a sit-in outside the head post office in Kohima.

The protestors under the banner of All India Postal Employees Union comprising different postal services; P-III, P-IV and Gramin Dak Sevak (GDS) under Nagaland division ceased their work.

The postmaster of Kohima head office, Kevilekho Angami in his speech, maintained that the nationwide strike was a fight for rights against the political leaders from taking things according to their own whims and added that the strike is a united force, irrespective of posts, against injustice.

Angami also maintained that the services of all 41 post offices in the state were hit by the bandh on Wednesday.

 In the brief programme outside the head post office, various speakers from the department took turns to highlight the charter of demands and demanded scrapping of the New Pension Scheme (NPS) and to restore the Old Pension Scheme (OPS), stating that it does not have any economic security.

They also asked the government to honour the assurance by the Group of Ministers (GoM) to National Joint Council of Action (NJCA) leaders on June 6, 2016 for minimum pay and fitment formula.

The group also demanded the withdrawal of anti-worker codes and labour reforms and to withdraw the ‘draconian’ FR 56 (J) and Rule 48 of CCS (Pension Rule of 1972).

Other demands included scraping of the Citizenship Amendment Act 2019 as well as filling up of vacant posts in central government departments; stopping privatisation; corporatisation of central government departments and PSUs; removal of five percent ceiling on compassionate appointment; granting five promotions in service career; granting civil service status to GDS; withdrawing  of ‘very good’ bench mark for MACP; granting promotional hierarchy and date of effect from July 25, 2016 and settlement of problems arising out of implementation of Core Service Integration (CSI ); Rural Information and Communication Technology (RITC)/Indian Postal Payment Bank (IPPB)/Core Banking System (CBS).

Whereas, banks, government offices and educational institutions functioned normally with vehicles plying and shops open as usual.