Patna, June 29: Bihar Engineering Services Association (Besa) has decided to stage a daylong protest in the capital on July 1 at JP Roundabout in support of their demands. The march will go through Frazer Road, Dakbungalow, Patna Junction and reach R-Block.
Besa general secretary Shailesh Kumar said: “The Nitish Kumar government had promised to provide salary to the state government engineers on a par with their central government counterparts but Besa members are not getting salary according to the promises made by the state government. Today, Nitish feels proud that the state has good roads, highways, schools and hospitals. It’s because of us but the government is not fulfilling its promises. Whatever dev elopment Bihar is seeing is because of engineers but the government has neglected us.”
He added: “This is unfortunate that Besa engineers are being insulted by the state government and now the time has come to show our anger and disappointment. In this regard, Besa general body has decided to protest.” The decision of the protest was taken at Abhiyanta Bhavan in presence of other members and associates. Shailesh said: “We have been putting forward our demands since 2009 but we did not protest because of assurances by the chief minister and chief secretary. On March 8, 2009, our delegation met the chief secretary and he assured that our grievances will be taken up but nothing happened. Then we met Nitish on December 31, 2010, he assured us that the salaries would be on a par with central government engineers but nothing happened.”
Commenting on the assurance, Besa president Ashok Kumar Verma said: “At one point of time, an agreement was made between Besa and the state government over some issue and the government said that engineers’ demands would be met but nothing has been done. Issues related to pay revision was to be placed before a pay committee. The finance department on January 17, 2009 issued a notification. However, when the report of the pay committee was submitted, there was no implementation of the agreement reached between Besa and the state government.”
