CUTTACK: The Odisha Pipe Workers' Union has threatened that over 60,000 employees engaged in urban and rural water supply across the state will cease work from March 5 if their long-standing demands are not met with.Union advisor Rajendra Prasad Singh on Friday said the ultimatum followed phased agitation programmes by pipe workers across the state to step up pressure on the government to fulfil their demands.Their demands include regularization of temporary employees along with social security coverage such as provident fund and retirement benefits like pension and minimum wage for contractual and self-employed workers under the rural drinking water supply network.A memorandum of demands addressed to chief minister Naveen Patnaik was submitted through the revenue divisional commissioners and collectors on February 22. "The pipe workers had sat on dharnas outside the divisional offices of the Public Health Engineering Organisation across the state on February 28," Singh said.According to the Union, while 40,000 pipe workers are regular employees, around 2,500 employees have been working on a temporary basis at pump houses in both urban and rural areas since April 12, 1993."These temporary employees have been working without service conditions for the past 25 years and will retire in another five years without any social security," Union spokesperson Bijay Bhusan Pati said.

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