Srinagar, Sep 8: The employees of Food Corporation of India Tuesday staged a sit-in protest from 10 AM to 5 PM in front of district office Barzullah, here.
 The employees are demanding wage revision and increase in manpower. The strike was observed in response to the call by National Executive Committee of Bhartiya Khadiya Nigam Karamchari Sang, which had called for a country-wide one day strike of FCI employees.
 The Karamchari union was demanding pay hike and protesting “shortage” of staff.
  “Our basic demand is pay revision, which has not been done in our case as yet, despite that the 6th pay revision has been implemented at the centre as well as the state,” said Manmohan Paul Singh, general secretary BKNKS.
 But pay hike is not the only issue. “We have a couple of issues that we have been agitating since long yet they have not been acceded to by the government,” he said.
 Among other issues the union is demanding more staff especially in the Valley. “Each employee here is made to do the work of eight persons at a time because of the shortage of the staff,” Singh said.
 “Although the shortage of staff is everywhere in India, but the situation is worse in the Valley.”
 He said even as infrastructure in Kashmir had increased manifold over the years, there was constantly reduction in the number of employees.
 “Earlier at small godowns we would have as much as 70 employees, excluding officers, but now even as the strength of the godowns has grown manifold the total staff has come down,” said Singh.
  “It is not humanly possible for anyone to conduct so much of work single-handedly,” he said.
 The employees urged the Food and Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution Ministry, New Delhi, to settle their issues immediately.

Lastupdate on : Tue, 8 Sep 2009 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Tue, 8 Sep 2009 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Wed, 9 Sep 2009 00:00:00 IST