Jail Employees In Odisha Launch Indefinite Hunger Strike To Press Their Demands

Bhubaneswar/Puri: The employees of jails in Odisha on Monday launched an indefinite hunger strike in every district to draw the attention of the state government to their demands.

The employees under the aegis of Nikhil Odisha Kara Karmachari Mahasangha sat on dharna in front of the district jails across the state. They resorted to dharna after their black badge protest for 12 days failed to elicit any response from the government.

Speaking to media persons at the dharna site, Kalu Setty, chief warder, district jail, Puri said they had submitted a memorandum to the government mentioning their 5-point charter demands. They also went to duty wearing black badges from September 13 to 24.

“We have been drawing the attention of the government to our demands fora long time. As the government did not take any step to fulfil our demands by the deadline of September 25, we launched fast-on-to-death agitation as mentioned in our memorandum,” he added.

Setty said all protesting jail staff would continue hunger strike till the demands are fulfilled. If anything untoward happens to any of them, the government would be responsible for it, he warned.

Their demands included increase in the grade pay of warders from Rs 1900 to Rs 2,000, chief warders’ grade pay from Rs 2,000 to Rs 2,400, food allowance from Rs 400 to Rs 1400, implementation of old promotion scheme and salary along with grade pay and DA.