Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, June 30: Demanding settlement of their dues, SRTC volunteer retired employees held a protest demonstration, here today.
The protest was organized under the banner of All J&K SRTC Volunteer Retired Employees Association, led by Dev Raj Bali, president of VRS Union.
The protesters raised slogans in support of their demands, which include settlement of 6th Pay Commission arrears, Cost of Living Allowance (COLA) arrears since 1999 and Pension benefits.
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They also appealed the Chief Minister to intervene into the matter and get their long pending dues of 6th Pay Commission and COLA, amounting to Rs 167649497, for which bills are already prepared and lying in the Secretariat, released at the earliest.
While addressing the protesters, Dev Raj Bali said that objective of the demonstration was to voice their grievances and demand, which the State Government and its Transport authorities were not listening to. “At the time of VRS/GHS, the Government had announced that one who takes the voluntarily retirement, his dues would be settled within 60 days from the date of VRS/GHS but even after more than 6 years, our dues have not been cleared and we are struggling for the same till date,” he lamented and added that in this long struggle of 6 years, 17 VRS/GHS employees passed away as they could not afford good treatment for want of funds.
Others, who addressed the gathering, included Dwarka Nath, Balwinder Singh, Bindravan Sharma, Prem Nath, Davinder Singh, Deep Raj and Gulshan Singh.
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