Anti-employee attitude of Punjab govt exposed, says Akali Dal

The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) on Monday appealed to government employees to support the party, which has worked tirelessly for their welfare.

It also welcomed the Punjab and Haryana High Court order directing the Punjab government to clear dearness allowance (DA) arrears of Rs 14,191 crore within 15 days.

Akali Dal leader Bikram Singh Majithia told the media here that the anti-employee attitude of the AAP government had also been exposed in court.

“The government tried its best to deny the DA benefits to employees on one pretext or the other. It formed a three-member committee comprising senior leaders Harpal Cheema, Aman Arora and Baljit Kaur, which recommended that there was no need to give additional DA benefits to state employees as their benefits were on a par or even better than the Centre.

“It also cited the fact that the state was in the midst of an economic crisis and even asserted that it was not bound to follow the Central government vis-a-vis DA revisions,” he said.

Asserting that all these facts were on record in the court, Majithia said the government was saying one thing in public and another in court.

“Guru Dokhi Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann claims the state economy is doing well, but the government is saying the opposite in court. Similarly, the AAP government hype on development has also been crushed with its own admission in court in which it has stated that the majority of state funds are being spent on salaries, pensions, loan instalments and subsidies.”

Stating that even now the state government did not have any intention of clearing the DA dues within 15 days as directed by the court, former Cabinet minister Majithia said the government had approached the court on Monday morning itself to allow the payment to be done in instalments.

“Even as it is doing all this, it has spent around Rs 8,000 crore on advertisements and public events. It is also allowing its ministers like Harjot Bains to claim government travel allowances for foreign tours despite not having political clearance for the same. Crores are also being spent to ferry AAP convener Arvind Kejriwal all over the country on chartered planes at Punjab government expense. All this money could have been used to protect the welfare of government employees,” he added.