West Bengal Government Bans Protests During Tiffin Break

• Image Credit: Google

• May 24, 2023 | Dhupali Das

Employees of the West Bengal government have been barred from protesting even during tiffin breaks...

Digital Desk: Employees of the West Bengal government have been barred from protesting even during tiffin breaks. 

According to a circular signed by the finance department's additional chief secretary, protesting employees will be marked absent. In addition, employees are not permitted to leave the office during working hours.

This circular comes two months after the Department of Personnel and Training prohibited government employees from participating in strikes.

CPI(M) Rajya Sabha member and senior lawyer MP Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya stated that if the circular is challenged it "won't stand the test of law." "It is the employee's right to spend his tiffin break whatever he wishes. The decision of the state government is completely autocratic," he told said.

Biswajit Gupta Choudhury, general secretary of Joutha Manch, an umbrella group of state government employees, called the ruling a "direct attack on the fundamental freedoms of government employees." "We're not going to let that happen," he said.

Employees of the state government have been protesting for a rise in their dearness allowance (DA). Last week, chief minister Mamata Banerjee claimed that the 36,000 elementary teachers who worked in state-sponsored and -aided schools lost their jobs as a result of the ongoing protest for a DA raise.

Banerjee had also called the demand for a DA increase unjustified, insisting that its distribution is at the discretion of the government. She further claimed that members of families supporting the Trinamool Congress (TMC) will be denied jobs due to the presence of coordination committee members in the Public Service Commission.

However, Choudhury stated that the court's decision to fire 36,000 teachers is "unrelated" to the protest. "While the employees sympathize with the terminated teachers, they want an appropriate and fair entrance examination," he said. 

Choudhury also refuted Banerjee's claim that the Public Service Commission does not promote members of families that support the TMC because of the presence of coordination committee members.

"Merit-based criteria are the sole determinants of employment. Members of our organization serve on the Public Service Commission, but is its chairman a member of the coordination committee or a political appointee? The chief minister is against merit-based criteria," he stated.

On May 4, around 25,000 government employees from several districts gathered outside the State Secretariat to demand a significant increase in DA. They are dissatisfied with the 3% rise, believing it is much less than the 38% DA granted to Central Government employees.