Gaibandha PHE office locked for ninth day

The employees are staying away from work. They are agitating as the government declared 'no work no pay' for those under the village sanitation project.

The employees under the project began agitation all over the country demanding nine months' arrears salaries. In Gaibandha, they are staging demonstrations to realise their demand.

The finance ministry at a meeting in January this year decided 'no work no pay' for 1797 employees under the project in Gaibandha, recruited in 1977. They are masons and labourers on pay scales of Tk 1625 and Tk 1500.

Protesting the decision, the Public Health Engineering Labour and Employees Union began agitation from March 5.

The sources said the PHE Chief Engineer sent a letter to the Local Government Ministry Secretary requesting absorption of the employees under village sanitation project into the National Sanitation Programme.

"It is injustice. We are no where even after 15 years' service. We demand that our service be covered by the revenue budget", Abdur Rouf, president of Gaibandha unit of PHE Workers Union told this correspondent.

When contacted, Gaibandha PHE Executive Engineer said, "We are awaiting immediate settlement of problem. Work in the sector has virtually collapsed".