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Postal strike continues: Paswan hopeful

The three key federations spearheading the indefinite postal strike which entered the third day Thursday urged Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to intervene and pave the way for a negotiated settlement.

In a memorandum to the prime minister, the National Federation of Postal Employees, the Federation of National Postal Organisations and the Bhartiya Postal Employees Federation met the prime minister Thursday afternoon and urged for an early settlement of their long pending demands.

Some of the demands are implementation of the Talwar Committee recommendations on extra departmental employees who are 300,000 strong; revision of scales for various cadres; increase in percentage of promotion in cadres and the casual labourers to be absorbed in vacant positions.

Thousands of agitating postal employees were stopped from going to Parliament but instead staged demonstrations at nearby Jantar Mantar.

''The strike has virtually paralysed the entire mail service in the country and the government's so called skeletal service is not working,'' Chandran Pillai, General Secretary, NFPE, one of the largest federations told UNI.

Pillai said there had been no communication from the government so far for conciliatory talks.

Meanwhile, Union Communications Minister Ram Vilas Pawan Thursday expressed optimism that the three-day-old strike would end ''very soon'' with the Union government conceding most of the demands of the agitating employees.

Talking to reporters after the inauguration of the 14th Asian International Philatelic Exhibition, called ''Indepex Asiana-2000'', by Governor Viren J Shah, Paswan and Minister of State for Communications Tapan Sikdar, ruled out the possibility of seeking the army's help in running the postal services.

Since the government had already agreed to meet at least three of the total five demands of the striking employees, there was no question of seeking assistance of the army in running the postal services, they said adding that they were also ''very hopeful that the strike will end very soon''.

Elaborating on the outcome of talks between the Union government and representatives of the striking unions, Sikdar said the government was now contemplating setting up a social welfare fund for extra departmental agents and other temporary workers to ensure pension-like benefits to them.

Regretting that the government was so far unable to implement the new scales for postmen because of a court ruling, Sikdar, however, promised to execute the scales as soon the cases were cleared.

Regarding the upgradation of financial benefits for extra departmental agents on par with the government employees with similar experience, the minister said the present nomenclature could be changed after receiving a written undertaking from the employees concerned.

About the possibility of giving them the status of government employees, the minister regretted that it could not be done under the present structure. But efforts were being made to end the anomalies in the gradation of postal sorters, he said.

EARLIER REPORT
Postal strike enters third day

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