Maha govt employees seek 5-day week; to go on strike

Maharashtra government employees will go on an indefinite strike from February 13 after their meeting with the Chief Minister on their demands of five day week and grant of facilities on par with central government staff failed to yield desired result.
"We had over two-hour discussions with Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan and Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar over the issue. Not a single demand of ours has been accepted," G D Kulthe, chief advisor of Maharashtra State Gazetted Officer Federation told PTI.
He said we have been demanding a five-day week for quite sometime.
"Also, we have been demanding various facilities which are there for the central government employees. We also want the retirement age of the state government employees to be increased from current 58 to 60," Kulthe said.

The federation had submitted the proposal for a five-day week work schedule and other facilities to the around 15 lakh government staff to Chavan.
"We (employees) are ready to work for an additional 40 minutes every day, in order to compensate for the loss of working hours," he said, adding their other demands of education allowance, transport allowance and child care leave for women should also be met.
"There was a detailed discussion on our demands at the meeting and we also heard what Chavan and Pawar had to say. However, the meeting ended without any concrete decision," said Sameer Bhatkar, Federation general secretary.

"We have been making these demands for the last three-four years. By our estimate the state government will have to bear an additional burden of just Rs 8 to 10 core per month if our demands were implemented," he said.