The Non-executive staff of the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) have started begun with their protest at several Metro stations demanding a raise in their pay grades. The staff are also demanding that the action taken against some employees who had been against the campaign. The agitated staff of DMRC have also threatened to call a complete “shutdown” on Monday if their demands go unheard. They also demand the formation of a union.
“The non-executive staff of DMRC have started a sit in at multiple stations such as Dwarka, Yamuna Bank, Badarpur, Shahdara, Qutub Minar, and Vishwa Vidyalaya. The staff are sitting on the platforms with black bands on their on their arms,” said Anil Kumar Mahato, the secretary of the Staff Council, reported Hindustan Times.
However, their demonstrations have not affected the metro operations.
As many as 9,000 of the non-executive staff, which include train operators and station crew, have extended their support to the agitation.
“We were assured on May 29, 2015, that our pay scales would be increased by a grade. We were in Schedule C then, and we are still getting paid under schedule C now. Even after two years, there has been no change,” said Mahato, who has also demanded their allowances be according to the same as what ‘officers’ make under Schedule A.
Significantly, this is not the first time that the workers are going on a strike demanding a salary hike. A protest was held from April to June last year too. The DMRC had then issued show-cause notices to 15 staff members, including Mahato, and had cancelled their annual increments for doing the protests.
The staffers demand that the lowest grade be brought up to Rs 14,000 and the highest grade brought up to Rs 20,600. They have also been seeking the abolition of the Delhi domicile clause, which makes it mandatory for them to claim medical reimbursements for parents, as they said that the parents of around 90 per cent of the staffers do not live in Delhi.
