Tamil Nadu - Udhagamandalam   

Government Botanical Garden workers stage demonstration

—Photo: M. Sathyamoorthy

Protest: Horticulture workers staging a demonstration at the Government Botanical Garden in Udhagamandalam on Monday.

Udhagamandalam: In protest against the delay in paying their salaries members of the Nilgiris District Horticulture Department Workers Welfare Association abstained from work and staged a demonstration inside the Government Botanical Garden here on Monday.

Claiming that they were left with no other option, the Secretary of the Association, V. Ravichandran regretted that though the revenue earned by the garden was considerable the workers were not getting their salaries regularly.

Stating that the callous outlook of the officials was the main reason for the delay, he said that the salaries should also be hiked. If the problem was not resolved forthwith, they would resort to other measures.

The Joint Director of Horticulture R. Selvaraj when contacted said that due to certain administrative problems there had been a delay in giving salaries to horticulture workers in various parts of Tamil Nadu. While in other places payment was pending for about four months, in the Nilgiris arrangements had been made locally to give salaries for two months.

The garden was now part of an autonomous body named Tamil Nadu Horticulture Development Agency. The Government is in the process of earmarking a revolving fund. Pointing out that there were two workers associations in the garden, he said that since members of only one had gone on strike maintenance and other works had not been affected.

Though the inflow of tourists was heavy none of them had been subjected to any kind of inconvenience on account of the strike.

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