Orissa govt employees threaten agitation

Bhubaneswar, Jul 16 (UNI) Around five lakh employees under the banner of the United Forum of Employees and Teachers, Orissa (UFETO) today threatened to resort to agitational path, if their five-point charter of demands were not met before July 22.

UFETO president Bijay Kumar Mohanty told newspersons here that the forum would hold a massive demonstration in front of the state Assembly on July 23, if the government failed to concede to their demands.

The demands included among other things merger of the 50 per cent DA with the basic with effect from 2004 instead of 2006, raising the retirement age to 60, filling up 45,000 posts lying vacant in different departments at the earliest.

Mr Mohanty also demanded to remove the anomalies in the pay scale of teachers and employees and notify the government decision to exclude pension and TI from the family income while giving appointment under rehabilitation scheme and abolition of block grant scheme.

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