Jammu– Hundreds of security guards employed with banks in Jammu and Kashmir staged a protest against salary cuts. The protests were held simultaneously In Srinagar and in Jammu.
In Srinagar, security guards associated with Jammu and Kashmir Bank staged a protest against Chandigarh-based Delta Company over what they termed a huge pay cut. There are around 3500 skilled and unskilled security guards working at different banks and ATMs in Srinagar, Ganderbal and Budgam.
Scores of security guards assembled at Press Enclave Srinagar and registered their protest. “This protest is not against JK Bank but against the Chandigarh based Delta Company that despite being paid by JK Bank in advance has resorted to a pay cut,” Tahir Ahmed, one of the protesters, told a local news agency KNT.
He added: “Earlier JK Bank had given a contract to Chandigarh based ‘Para-Green’ Company. The Para Green Company was paying Rs 11,250 to skilled guards and Rs 7,500 monthly to unskilled security guards. Now JK Bank has given the contract to another Chandigarh based ‘Delta Company’, that shortly after getting the contract resort to reduction in monthly salaries.”
The new company will pay Rs 9,000 to skilled guards and Rs 5,500 to unskilled guards. Besides, it has asked the security guards to pay Rs 15,000 from their own pockets so that uniforms and other things can be arranged for them. The protesters said that JK Bank pays Rs 18,000 per security guard to this private security company but instead of spending a major portion on hapless and poor security guards, this company is intending to exploit them and keep the major chunk of money with itself.
The protesters appealed to the JK Bank to take up the issue with the ‘Delta Company’.
Meanwhile in Jammu, hundreds of security guards, including ex-servicemen, working for a private company engaged by a bank, protest against salary cuts without any notification. The guards providing protection to Automatic Teller Machines (ATMs), cash vans and bank branches assembled outside the zonal office of J&K Bank at Bahu Plaza and staged a sit-in, seeking intervention of Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha and the bank management to ensure proper wages to them.
We have assembled here to lodge our protest against the salary cut at a time when the prices of essential commodities, including kitchen goods, apart from petrol and diesel, have skyrocketed making the lives of the common man miserable,” ex-paramilitary serviceman Balbir Singh, who was leading the protest, said.
Singh, who is posted as a security guard in the zonal office, said the salary cut of nearly Rs 2,000 to Rs 2,500 to both unskilled and skilled guards was not acceptable to them.
“A gunman would get Rs 11,500, while the ATM guard was given a salary of around Rs 7,000. After the salary cut, how will we feed our families in the prevailing situation? This is grave injustice and the J&K bank management should end its contract with this company immediately,” he said.
He demanded a monthly salary of Rs 15,000 for ex-servicemen working as guards providing security to bank branches and cash vans and Rs 10,000 for ATM guards who work from 5 am to 10 pm daily. “The contractor changes every three years and this time a Chandigarh-based company has got the contract. They have shown insensitivity and left thousands of guards, who are risking their lives, distressed,” he said, requesting the intervention of the bank management and the LG in reversing the pay cut and also ensuring proper wages to them.
Later, a delegation of the protesters met the bank officials and the protest was ended on their assurance that they will take up the issue with the company concerned.
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