MOHALI: Although the Punjab government is making tall claims of resolving the issues of the employees, the opposite is happening, people are fed up with lies due to which Veterinary Officers working in the animal husbandry department of Punjab have once again decided to start their agitation which had been suspended following positive assurances of Government.
This decision was taken, here today, in a meeting of the state executive of Joint Action Committee(JAC) of Vets for Pay Parity.
It was decided that ab initio, the Veterinary Officers will boycott the Government of India flag ship programme 'Surabhi Sarankhla', under which milk recording of elite milch cattle of the State is ro be done to register them on portal. Further, the JAC has given a 10-day ultimatum to the Government for fulfilling their demands, otherwise Veterinary doctors of Punjab will be forced to take to the streets against the government.
It is worth mentioning here that the scales of Veterinary officers had been equivalent to Medical and Dental Officers for the past over 40 years, but reduced by the previous Congress government without any solid reason or rationale.
Speaking about the struggle in the meeting, the JAC convene , Dr Gurcharan Singh, said that the pay parity of Veterinary officers with medical officers was as per the decision of the Punjab and Haryana High Court which was also upheld by the Apex court. To restore this, they had repeatedly been submitting memoranda to the state government and Animal husbandary Ministers, but got only assurances and empty promises.
He further said that in order to fill the files with statistics in the government, officials and employees were being harassed by higher officials to do impossible works and those who did not comply were being served charge sheets or suspension orders, while the condition of the employees and service conditions at the ground level was very miserable.
Committee co-conveners Dr. Puneet Malhotra and Dr. Abdul Majid said that if the government does not restore pay parity within 10 days, then the entire veterinary doctor cadre will be forced to take to the streets.