Darjeeling unrest: West Bengal govt to cut pay for absent GTA, district magistrate office employees

Kolkata: The West Bengal government has decided to effect one month pay cut for its employees working with the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) and the District Magistrate’s (DM) office in Darjeeling district who failed to attend their regular duties.

According to state secretariat sources, there will be pay cuts for the month of July for state government employees who had failed to attend their regular duties owing to the indefinite shutdown by Gorkha Janamukti Morcha (GJM) in the Hills.

There are around 8,000 employees at the GTA, while another 200 are there with the Darjeeling DM’s office.

“There will be pay cut for around 80 percent of employees at the GTA. That means pay cut will be for around 6,500 employees there,” a senior official at the state finance department said.

Around 180 employees with the Darjeeling DM’s office will face pay cuts for the month of July, he added.

On 21 June, the Mamata Banerjee government had issued a notification that employees, who will remain absent from duties, will be sent show cause notices, to which they should reply explaining the reasons of their absence.

The show cause notices will ask the employees who remained absent from work during the agitation, to explain as to why no action will be taken against them for their unauthorised absence.

Those who do not respond to the show cause notice will be liable to disciplinary actions, the notification had said.

The absence of employees will be treated as ‘dies non’ constituting a break in service of the employees and no salary will be admissible unless such absence was covered under permissible grounds, the notification had stated.

The GJM has called an indefinite bandh from 12 June demanding a separate state of Gorkhaland and the Mamata Banerjee government had issued a notification stating that government offices in Darjeeling and Kalimpong will remain open and all employees should report for duty each day.