SHILLONG, March 28: As part of the two-day nationwide strike, a protest rally was organised by the Meghalaya Joint Council of Trade Unions and Association (MJCTU&A) on the premises of the Meghalaya Cooperative Apex Bank here on Monday, which saw the participation of workers and employees from government, public and private sectors.
The rally flagged burning issues such as rising prices of all essential commodities including fuel and cooking gas.
MJCTU&A general secretary JL Das said that the trend of rising costs will ultimately impose burden on the general public. “We strongly condemn the huge hike of Rs 25 per litre on diesel for the bulk buyers. The burden will be passed on to the masses using public transport and such other services through cascading effects,” he said.
Das informed that the rally has resolved to urge the government to ensure withdrawal of such massive hike immediately so as to save public transport system and provide relief to the people.
It may be mentioned that on the first day of the nationwide strike, only bank and postal services took a hit in the city.
Meanwhile, the MJCTU&A expressed serious concern over the reported move of the Union government to reduce the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) interest rates for 2021-2022 to 8.1 per cent from 8.5, which, it said, is the lowest in four decades.
“It is reported that the EPFO’s Board in its meeting held in Guwahati recently has decided to slash the interest rate. This decision was taken despite the corpus shooting up from Rs 8.29 lakh crore to Rs 9.4 lakh crore in 2021-2022,” the MJCTU&A stated.
According to the Union, the fall of the interest rate is a big disappointment to millions of Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) subscribers, which, according to the MJCTU&A, further point towards the dismal state of economy of the country.
The Union called the move a clear-cut attack on the working people.
During the rally, the union urged the state government to revoke its decision on the interest rate.
