BHUBANESWAR: The Odisha Rajya Milita Swabalambi Karigar Sangha and the United Self Employed Mechanics’ Union of the State on Wednesday declared to gherao the State Assembly on August 31 demanding hike in wages to Self Employed Mechanics (SEMs) and to enact a law to give them the status of water supply employees.
At a Press meet, the spokesperson
of Sangha Pradipta Ram said the SEMs numbering about 12,000 in the State have
been rendering water supply service in rural Odisha for more than last two
decades in the form of operating, repairing and maintaining about more than
6,000 pump houses and 3 lakh tube wells by supplying, testing and purifying
drinking water.
Ram said drinking water supply in
rural Odisha is an important and essential service like other services of the
State Government. The SEMs work throughout the year, in return they are getting
Rs 500 per month only without any allowances and leave, he said adding, how the
SEM workers would run their kitchen with a meager salary.
“They have been demanding for
salary hike and given many memorandums to different Ministers and principal
secretaries, but in vain,” said a SEM worker. The Sangh called upon all the SEM
workers to join the rally to continue the movements till demands are fulfilled.
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