more-in With the nine-day-old strike called by the National Federation of Postal Employees (NFPE) and the Federation of National Postal Organisation (FNPO) evoking no favourable response from the authorities, the unions are seeking the support of prominent Union government employees’ organisations. On Thursday, the members of the Confederation of Central Government Employees and Workers will stage hunger strikes in all districts expressing solidarity with the postal employees. Sit-in will be held in front of select Central government offices. The strike is for a raise in the wages of the Gramin Dak Sevaks and implementation of the Kamalesh Chandra Committee Report. R. Jainendrakumar, assistant secretary of the Kerala Circle of NFPE, said the association was yet to get a fresh invitation from the Union government to discuss the demands. “If the government continues to ignore the strike, we will launch a nationwide hunger strike,” he said. As the strike stalled the functioning of around 500 post offices in Kozhikode district, many customers turned to the private courier companies for service paying heavy charges. Since the launch of the postal strike on May 22, the courier service providers have been doing brisk business. “I had to pay ?40 for sending a medical insurance claim to my insurance company in Kochi as the post offices were closed,” said Abhijith Bhaskaran, a city resident. Wednesday was the deadline for sending medical bills to process the claim, he said. Some residents complained that their requests to deliver postal articles to them personally at the post offices were turned down. Some of these articles included passports and Kerala State Public Service Commission letters. Delivery of articles The union leaders said the postal articles would be delivered to the addressee on fast track if the government was ready to concede their demands. All the postal employees had already expressed their willingness to work overtime for the delivery of pending articles, they said. Mr. Jainendrakumar said the delivery of only one day’s postal articles was pending across the State and it could be cleared very easily. As all the offices were remaining closed from May 22, there was no collection of fresh articles at all for delivery, he pointed out. In the wake of the continuing strike, various trade unions and political parties have come up with their demand to the Union government to compassionately treat the issue. ‘Poor wages’ Leaders of Indian National League (Democratic) said the protesters were raising genuine demands and they were getting poor wages in villages. At least the difficulties of the public should be considered by the authorities, they said. Leaders of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions said they would offer all support to the postal employees. They also pointed out that the wage paid to nearly three lakh Gramin Dak Sevaks was insufficient compared to the time they spend in office each day for duty.

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