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Bihar officials to go on week-long mass casual leave

Our Correspondent in Patna

Over 2,500 officers of the Bihar Administrative Service Association will go on a week-long mass casual leave between August 24 and 30 to press their charter of demands. The stir is likely to affect the law and order situation in the state.

The move comes close on the heels of a fortnight long work-to-rule agitation between August 7 and 22. At that time, they had boycotted law and order duty.

The decision follows the failure of talks between a BASA delegation and state chief secretary Vijay Shankar Dubey. The latter told them that it was up to the state government to take a final decision in this regard.

Though the list of complaints is long, the main demands are implementation of pay revision and the promotion policy as agreed by the state government 17 months back.

The other demands include rise in retirement age from 58 to 60 years, permission to officers to use beacon lights, proper security in block offices and revocation of suspension of 20 officers.

The deadlock persists on the implementation of new pay scales and promotional avenues.

According to BASA president W N Singh, the state government, on March 29, 1999, agreed to implement the scale of Rs 8,000 to Rs 13,500. However, instead of implementing it they are paying the scale of Rs 6,500 to 10,500.

BASA officials consider this unfair as it is equivalent to the scale of head assistants or primary school teachers. "Even the headmaster gets paid in the scale of Rs 8,000," Singh told rediff.com.

Singh also complained that the government proposed to abolish the posts of additional secretary and special secretary, stone-walling their promotional avenues. He demanded that these two posts be retained.

The government, last March, had agreed to constitute an administrative committee to look into the BASA's grievances but till date no action has been taken. They blame the Indian Administrative Service lobby for the non-implementation of their demands.

BASA officials said that while neighbouring states, like West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh, have implemented the new pay scales, the Bihar government complains of resource crunch. "Where is the resource crunch when the state government spends Rs 170 million on reimbursement of medical bills of IAS officers and ministers?" asks the general secretary of the BASA, Gangadhar Lal Das.

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