Railway strike exerts pressure on Treasury

 
Sri Lanka’s Finance Ministry is under pressure to allocate a large sum of money running up to billions of rupees to fulfill the demand of a salary hike of 12 per ent to around 12,000 railway department workers currently on strike.
 
If the government accedes to this demand then the salaries of workers of parallel grades in 121 other state departments will also have to be increased accordingly in order to prevent salary anomaly, official sources said.
 
Salaries of 610,814 employees serving in 121 department (similar to parallel grades in the railway) will have to be adjusted accordingly by the Salaries and Cadre Commission to tackle the issue of salary anomalies, a senior government official said adding that most of these workers are not agitating unlike railway workers as they were not in a position to paralyse the state machinery.
 
The average salary of engine drivers, guards, station masters and engineers who were among those involved in the strike is in the region of Rs.46,000 and the demands of railway employees should be handled without causing injustice to other employees in  the public sector, the official said.
 
The sudden strike lunched by several railway trade unions including drivers and guards at 3 pm yesterday continued on Thursday as well as the government is still to provide solutions to salary disparity in the railway service. 
 (Bandula)