RIMS employees demonstrate in front of director L. Fimate’s office on Friday. A Telegraph picture
Imphal, March 19: Tension mounted at the Regional Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) here on the second day of the strike called by the non-teaching staff over non-payment of salary arrears after talks between the employees and hospital authorities failed to arrive at an agreement.
The staff, comprising mostly of grade IV and grade III workers, had closed the casualty and out-patient departments of the institute for four hours yesterday demanding immediate payment of the remaining 60 per cent of their pay arrears.
The employees today, however, allowed the hospital to function but about 200 of them staged a sit-in in front of the office of the institute’s director, L. Fimate.
A delegation of the RIMS Non-teaching Employees Association, which is spearheading the agitation, held the second round of talks with the director today. However, no agreement could be arrived at.
N. Rasantakumar, the president of the association, later informed the strikers that the director had assured to clear the arrears within this month. However, the information was greeted with strong condemnation from the staff, who maintained a defiant stand, saying they would not accept the assurance and demanded immediate payment of the arrears as the Centre had already granted funds for the institute.
The strikers also shouted slogans like, “We want arrears now and not later” as Fimate came out of his office and left for his residence for lunch. As some of the slogan-shouting protesters even followed the director, some security guards had to surround the director as he got into his car, parked near the office.
The RIMS authority had paid 40 per cent of the salary arrears from January 2006, in May last year after the Centre adopted the Sixth Pay Commission’s recommendations. However, the authority failed to pay the remaining 60 per cent of the arrears.
The strike was triggered after the institute told the employees that the Rs 36 crore provided to RIMS this month by the Centre would be used for repairing equipment and infrastructure development and not for payment of arrears.
After the first round of talks with a delegation of the strikers yesterday afternoon, Fimate had sent a fax message to the Union health ministry apprising it of the demands of the strikers that the arrears be paid from the funds released by the Centre. A source in the institute said the health ministry was yet to reply to the employees’ demand.
Rasantakumar said the sit-in would continue till March 22 and if the institute failed to pay the arrears by that date, the employees association would hold a general body meeting to chalk out its next course of action.
In another development, pensioners today staged a march, demanding implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission’s recommendations in toto.
