Odisha: Section, ministerial staff demand cadre rejig

BHUBANESWAR: Members of Odisha heads of department section officers association and Odisha heads of department ministerial officers association continued their pen down strike at the Heads of Department (HoD) office here since August 17 demanding restructuring of their cadre.
The members are now working as junior assistants, senior assistants, section officers, establishment officers and senior establishment officers in Heads of the Departments.They want to restructure the cadre and convert their posts to assistant administrative officer (AAO), joint administrative officers, administrative officers (AO), senior AO, chief AO-II and chief AO-I. AAO should be the entry level post, said a member.
"After cadre restructuring, our officers will get better pay than the existing pay scale. Junior assistant and senior assistant posts will be merged into AAO post and it will create vacancy for new people to get into the service. Several officers of our cadre in the Secretariat are getting more salary than us, so we want pay parity by restructuring our cadre," said Sudhanshu Patra, secretary of Odisha heads of department ministerial officers association.
"On March 16, chief minister Naveen Patnaik had announced to restructure our cadre and approved the decision on April 16. But it is yet to be implemented. We had given a 15-day deadline to the government on August 1. When we did not get any response, we started the agitation," said Patra.
The members said the government should implement the order of chief minister and fulfil their demand. "People are facing problems due to strike because they could not get service like pension, transfer related works and other government services. We will continue our strike till demands are fulfilled," said Rashmi Ranjan Padhi, an association member.
Presently, more than 3500 section and ministerial officers are working in the HoD office and divisional offices at Berhampur, Cuttack and Sambalpur.
Finance minister Sashi Bhushan Behera said the government is examining the issue. "We are not doing any discrimination with any officers' association. We are discussing on the issue," he added.