No work no pay order issued for Patwaris

Dehradun: About two months after 800 revenue police officials known as Patwaris, posted in nine districts stopped working, to press for better facilities at par with the police, state secretary for revenue, Bhaskaranand Joshi on Saturday, issued a no work no pay order with immediate effect.
Although Patwaris are a part of the hierarchy in state revenue department, they are treated equivalent to sub-inspectors in police department and as they get the same salary as an SI in police gets.
Apart from doing the job of revenue collection in hill districts, they also have police powers to book the criminals under different sections of laws and arrest them, but they are unable to perform their duties like police officers, owing to non-availability of essential facilities to them during duty hours.
A senior officer in Uttarakhand Revenue department told TOI policing work in hill areas of the nine hill districts including Dehradun, Pauri,Tehri, Chamoli,Nainital, Almora, Champawat, Bageshwar and Pithoragarh, had been paralyzed ever since they went on indefinite strike by completely stopping their day-to-day policing work, in support of their demands since December 8.
Revenue Secretary Bhaskaranand told TOI state government had to issue a No work No pay order on Saturday after repeated pleas by senior officials, to call off their strike, these patwari declined to return to their work. “Under the circumstances, government was left with no option but to issue the No work No pay order with immediate effect”, said Bhaskaranand Joshi.
According to Revenue Secretary, after the issue of the order, if over 800 striking Patwaris do not return to their work, state government will have to deduct their salary of striking days with immediate effect.
Association of Uttarakhand Patwaris has dubbed the order absolutely unfair, unjustified and against the norms service norms saying that state government should have served warning notices to striking Patwaris before issuing No work and No Pay order.
Chief Minister Harish Rawat has justified state government move against Patwari. Talking to TOI, Rawat said he had also repeatedly urged striking Patwaris to come back to their work on the ground that their all genuine demands will be met within a stipulated time. “But when they refused to take into consideration our repeated requests on this, we had to issue the order”, said CM Rawat.
On the other side, BJP state leadership has also lashed out at Congress government for the order saying that these patwaris should have been issued a show cause notices before issuing the order.