Water & health staff to strike next week

Kalimpong, Nov. 14: The employees of water works department will abstain from duty for six days next week as part of the ongoing agitation by the Janmukti Asthai Karmachari Sangathan (JAKS) for the regularisation of the jobs of DGHC staff.

The strike is part of a series of programmes announced today by JAKS to kick off its second phase of agitation, demanding that the contractual workers of the hill council be made permanent.

The next phase beginning tomorrow will see all development activities carried out by the various departments of the DGHC being stalled indefinitely. The contractual employees of the hill council have been on a pen-down strike since November 6 under the banner of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha-affiliated JAKS.

However, essential services like water supply and hospitals had been exempted from the purview of the strike.

The announcement of the new agitation programmes was made by the JAKS president, Machendra Subba, at a rally at Damber Chowk here. “We will continue our movement till our demand is met,” said Subba.

He added that the employees of the public health engineering (water works) would not be reporting for duty from November 17 to 22.

Given the scarcity of potable water in the hills, residents may be forced to buy water at higher rates for the major part of next week. “I hope the water suppliers will desist from jacking up the price,” said a resident. People living in the heart of the town buy water at Rs 80 for 500 litres now.

The contractual employees attached to the health department will also cease work from November 22 onwards for an indefinite period. “If they go ahead with their strike, the hospitals will be greatly affected as the state government staff alone cannot run the show,” said an employee of the Kalimpong Subdivisional Hospital. The majority of paramedics in hospitals, according to source, are DGHC employees.

In his speech, the JAKS president slammed the urban development minister, Asok Bhattacharya, for threatening to withhold the salary for the agitating DGHC employees. “Instead of talking about no-work, no-pay, the government should give us salary and other allowances which will be on a par with those of the state government employees.”