Even though the Punjab government started gram sabha general body meetings in all villages from December 1, all panchayat secretaries and gram sewaks are on strike since November 22 and the department is depending on gram rozgar sewaks (GRS) appointed under NREGA scheme for organising the meetings.
There are 2200 panchayat secretaries and 500 gram sewaks in Punjab. Des Raj, press secretary of Punjab panchayat secretary union, said, “Panchayat secretaries went on strike on November 22 when the AAP government was busy campaigning for the Gujarat Assembly elections. Results have also been declared now but it seems that the government is not bothered about the striking employees.”
He added that they had to go on strike as they were not getting paid on time. “The last salary drawn by majority of the secretaries was in August this year while many others got it till July. We get our salaries from the panchayat samiti and panchayat funds that depends on the income of every panchayats. A few panchayats have shamlat land and they earn good amount of money and few others hardly have any income. This problem has been there always and is yet to be resolved,” he said, adding that they have other complaints too.
Des Raj sais that they haven’t got any call for meeting even when they started the protest.
