In a major relief to citizens and the state government, the employees of Telangana region returned to work on Saturday, albeit ‘temporarily’, after 16 days of paralysing the administration as part of their noncooperation agitation.
The employees returned to work following an agreement which was reached with the government during the talks with Chief Minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy, held at the Secretariat till late in the night on Friday.
Over three lakh employees from the Telangana region had pledged that they would take part in the noncooperation agitation on February 17 and had been signing the attendance registers and then abstaining from work.
As part of the agreement reached with the government, the employees’ leaders said that the government had accepted some of their demands and hence they were calling off the stir. The leaders further cautioned that they would resume their strike if the government went back on its promises.
As part of the deal, Chief Minister Kiran Kumar Reddy promised to lead a delegation of the JAC leaders to New Delhi to impress upon the Centre to table a Telangana Bill in Parliament. The Chief Minister also promised to set up a Panel with a retired Judge at its helm to look into complaints of injustice to people from Telangana in matters of education and employment.
One other major decision which paved way for the employees calling off their stir temporarily was the fact that the government agreed to pay the salaries of the striking employees for the 16 days they had been on strike.
The stir had led to the government losing about Rs 800 crore per day in revenues, leaving it in such a state that it was unable to pay the salaries and pensions of its staff.
Apart from the government revenue, the stir had had a major impact on the common man, with practically all economic activity being affected.