Govt cracks down on 10,000-odd employees who’ve been absent since 2 aug

SDO Office at Kalimpong during the strike

Bappaditya Paul, SNS, Kolkata, 12 August 2013: Living by its words, the state government has ordered a pay-cut for nearly 10,000-odd government employees in the Darjeeling Hills who have been skipping office since 3 August as part of the Gorkha Jan Mukti Morcha’s (GJMM) ongoing agitation for a separate state.       

Furthermore, the government is contemplating disciplinary action against the absentee employees, which include stopping their annual increment and promotion.

According to a senior official in the state home department, the order has already been communicated to the Darjeeling district administration; a senior official in the collectorate in Darjeeling confirmed having received the same.

“On earlier occasions, whenever the GJMM convened a prolonged bandh in the Hills, the employees used to abstain from duties all through, only to report to office on pay day. On that day, they would work for the entire day, collect their full pay and skip office again from the next day,” said the official. “But this time this is not going to happen; we have ordered a pay-cut for the absentee employees with effect from 3 August.”

This means that till today, the employees in the Hills will be liable for eight days of pay-cuts, leaving aside the two Sundays in the 10-day-old shutdown in Darjeeling.    

Clarifying that the government will not stop at this, the official said departmental proceedings against the absentee employees were also on the cards. “This may range from stopping annual increment to denying promotions,” he said.

A senior official at the Darjeeling district collectoarte said that the state government has actually invoked an old order. “There was an earlier order stating that employees will have to face a pay-cut for abstaining duties; the same has been renewed afresh by Writers’,” he said. 

“My understanding of the order is that we will have to serve show-cause notices on the absentee staff before we actually deduct their salaries as some of them might have genuine reasons (other than the GJMM strike) for being absent,” said the official.

A senior official in the Personnel and Administrative Reforms at the state secretariat, however, said that a show-cause was not mandatory. “Serving a show-cause is only optional as it is the duty of an employee to immediately inform his/her office head for being absent,” he said. 

The state chief secretary, Mr Sanjay Mitra, had on 8 August said that strong action would be taken if the government employees in the Hills did not report for duty at once.