The Delhi Metro’s non-executive staff today threatened to bring train services to a halt from Monday if their demands, including a pay hike, won’t be met.
The non-executive staff, including train operators, maintenance staff, station controllers and customer relation assistants, have been protesting against the management’s alleged failure in implementing a two-year-old decision to upgrade their pay scales.
According to a PTI report, Delhi Metro had in 2015 agreed, “in principle”, to upgrade pay scale of maintainers from Rs 8,000-14,410 to Rs 10,170-Rs 18,700 from July of that year. It was also decided to merge the pay scales Rs 13,500-Rs 25,520 and Rs 14,000-Rs 26,950.
A new pay scale of Rs 20,600-Rs 46,500 was to be introduced, according to the agreement, which was decided upon following a similar employee stir, said an employee.
“We will gather at the Yamuna Bank station on Sunday evening. Thereafter, from 0000 hours of July 24, the protesting staff of around 9,000 will enforce a total shutdown,” secretary of staff council Anil Kumar Mahato said.
The other demands of the agitating staffers include the right to form a union, suspension of disciplinary proceedings against three staff members.
Video Courtesy: YouTube
Since yesterday, the protesting staff, wearing black bands, are gathering at metro stations across Delhi-NCR and sloganeering against the management in between their shifts. As of now, there has been no disruption in metro services.
Meanwhile, a DMRC spokesperson was of the opinion that since the recommendations of the Third Pay Commission have recently been accepted by the government and their orders are yet to be issued, it is not the time to ask for the revision of pay scales at this point
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