Anti-fixed pay outfit threatens to disrupt Vibrant Summit

Thousands of fixed-pay employees and contract workers today held demonstrations at Gandhinagar and threatened to disrupt the Vibrant Gujarat Summit if the state government failed to look into their demand for parity in salary and abolition of fixed-pay system.
Jan Adhikar Manch, which is fighting for the rights of fixed-pay workers, organised a rally near Akshardham Temple in Gandhinagar and gave a seven-day ultimatum to the government.
According to the convener of the Manch, Pravin Ram, "If the state government fails to give concrete assurance regarding our issues by January 7, we will disrupt the Vibrant Summit."
"In Gujarat, around 4.5 lakh youths are employed by the state government on fixed-pay basis, while over 10 lakh are employed as contractual workers. We want government to abolish this system and treat them as government employees, who get all the benefits, such as salary hike under seventh pay commission" said Ram.

"Today, we gave a memorandum to the deputy collector on this issue. We are awaiting a reply from the government" said Ram.
At present, Supreme Court is hearing the case related to fixed-pay regime and next hearing has been scheduled on January 10, said Ram.

Patel quota outfit Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti along with Dalit leader Jignesh Mewani and OBC leader Alpesh Thakor also extended their support to the cause and were present in today's rally.
As Jan Adhikar Manch had not taken police permission around 250 workers were briefly detained by police.
"The organisers had not taken any permission from us to hold this rally. We have detained around 250 persons from the spot and later released them. The crowd eventually dispersed after the deputy collector accepted their memorandum," said Gandhinagar SP Virendrasingh Yadav.