Kashmiri boy to spend Eid on road

Sameer Arshad

28 November 2009

NEW DELHI: It's no rogan josh, no gustaba for Kashmiri boy Umar Nissar (16) on Eid, as he squats on a pavement near Jantar Mantar and digs into his modest meal of pakoras and oranges. Away from the hustle and bustle of the festivities, Umar would spend Eid, the second in a row, on the road in Delhi where his father and hundreds of other J&K State Road Transport Corporation (J&KSRTC) would sit-in to protest against the non-payment of their salaries for the past 10 months.

The striking employees marched on foot from Srinagar to Jammu, along with their families, before arriving in Delhi "as a last resort''. The agitating employees were ruthlessly bashed and dispersed when they took to streets in Jammu and Srinagar. "Several people were injured when cops baton-charged us. My uncle, who's also a J&KSRTC employee lost his eye when a teargas shell hit him,'' said Umar, who was a part of the protest when the employees, along with their families, tried to march towards Srinagar's civil secretariat in October.

The striking employees say, their families had no choice but to join them as their pleas for restoration of salaries fell on "deaf ears''. J&KSRTC Employees Union president Shakeel Ahmed said Umar, who had to discontinue his studies, wasn't alone. "Thousands of kids of the employees face bleak future as we can no longer afford their studies,'' he said.

"I was a class IX student at Day Care School in Rajbagh, Srinagar. The school threw me out when I couldn't pay my fee,'' Umar said, still hoping to buy a Barbie and Eid clothes for his six-year-old sister. "When I was leaving for Jammu on foot, she asked me to get this stuff. I would ask dad if he could buy her these things.'' He said he came along to give moral support to his father. "I don't mind that I wouldn't either get to deck up my house for the festivities or the eidee,'' says Umar.

Ahmed said the government was refusing to give them benefits of the fifth and sixth pay commissions, saying the corporation was bankrupt. "This excuse is against the letter and spirit of the SRTC Act passed in Parliament in 1950. The Act says the SRTCs are for cheap, safe and best travel for the public on no-profit-no-loss basis,'' he said. "Why should we suffer with just 329 crore deficit? The DTC's losses run in crores, but its employees aren't penalized.''

J&K transport minister Qamar Ali Akhoon maintained that the employees wouldn't get fifth and sixth pay commission benefits, as the corporation was bankrupt. "We're determined to pay them their salaries and offer the benefits of the voluntary retirement scheme,'' he said.

The employees say nothing doing. "How can you expect us to settle for pay scales of 2000 in 2009?'' asked Ahmed, adding the employees have spent Eid, Diwali, Gurpurab on roads and would continue to do so if their demands weren't met.

The employees have been on an indefinite strike for the past three months and have recently submitted their resignations en masse under voluntary retirement scheme as a protest demanding one-time settlement of their dues.

Source: Times of India.
Link: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/Kashmiri-boy-to-spend-Eid-on-road/articleshow/5276989.cms.