Govt employees, teachers on a day's countrywide strike

New Delhi, Oct 30 (UNI) Employees of the Central and the state governments as well as school and university teachers all over the country went on a day's strike today demanding interim relief to Central government employees, a hike in interest on Provident Fund and small savings instruments, reduction in prices of essential commodities are among others.

Twelve lakh Central Government employees along with eight million state government employees and 25 lakh school and university teachers in the country went on a day's token strike across the country for fulfilment of their 12 point demands.

K K N Kutty, the secretary general of the Central Government employees and workers said the strike was total in Kerala, West Bengal, Northeastern states, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra and also widespread in Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh, Uttaranchal and Northwest india.

''Despite serving the strike notice on September 19, the Centre has chosen not to respond and no discussion took place till yesterday he said".

On the question of interim relief, he said the stand taken by both the sixth Central pay commission and the government has been absolutely unjustifiable especially in the background that the government did grant interim relief to officers of the oil sector when they threatened to go on strike.

UNI