Cuttack, Jan. 30: The Odisha Excise Officers’ Association (OEOA) has suspended its cease work protest along with a two-day relay hunger strike that had stalled wholesale trading of liquor in the state for over a week.

The Odisha State Beverage Corporation (OSBC), which has monopoly over wholesale trading of beer and Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL) in the state, remained paralysed as the strike called by over 500 excise officers in the state continued since January 22.

The state government had reportedly incurred loss of excise revenue earnings of around Rs 20 crore every day because of the strike.

The strike was called off today after the government assured to act upon the association’s demand for rectification of anomalies in pay structure of excise sub-inspectors. Official sources said the assurance was given during a meeting with representatives of the association on Tuesday.

“We suspended our strike as the state excise minister Niranjan Pujari during the meeting assured to ensure that the grievances of the excise sub-inspectors is addressed within 20 days,” OEOA president Basant Kumar Sethi told The Telegraph today.

“The association, however, has decided to wait and watch till February 13 before going in for indefinite hunger strike from the next day,” Sethi said.

The excise officers had started their protest against non-rectification of anomalies in pay structure of sub-inspectors on January 14 by wearing black badge on duty and not undertaking any raid or investigation beyond working hours.

The protesters went on an indefinite strike from January 22. A two-day relay hunger strike in front of the Excise Commissioner’s office in Cuttack was called, as the cease work evoked no response from the government. The association had planned to launch indefinite hunger strike and intensify the agitation further from January 30.

The grievance of the excise officers in the state centres round the contention that excise sub-inspectors continue to get much lower salary than police sub-inspectors even as the recruitment processes and job responsibilities of both are the same. The present scale of pay of excise sub-inspectors is equivalent to police constables and firemen.

Faulty implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission had resulted in loss of nearly Rs 1,000 in the per month gross salary of excise sub-inspectors. While they were receiving a gross salary of Rs 9,923 under the Fifth Pay Commission, their salary had allegedly gone down to Rs 8,960 after implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission recommendation, the association had alleged.

The cease work by excise officers had stalled functioning of the seven warehouses of Odisha State Beverages Corporation (OSBC) at Bhubaneswar, Balasore, Sambalpur, Cuttack, Berhampur, Rayagada and Angul which are used for stocking foreign liquor and beer.

The cease work had also paralysed 11 IMFL bottling plant, four distilleries and five beer factories of OSBC, which has monopoly over wholesale trading of beer and IMFL in the state.

As excise officers work as issuing authorities as well as pass permit authorities to monitor the inflow and outflow of stocks supply of foreign liquor, beer and rectified spirit by the corporation was disrupted, resulting in alleged loss of around Rs 100 crores.

With monopoly over wholesale trading of liquor, OSBC is responsible for the payment of excise duty.