Volunteers goes on strike: Pay hike, service regularization key demands

Amaravati: Volunteers working at ward and village secretariats across the state went on strike from Tuesday demanding the government to hike their salaries. Volunteers associations at a few districts gave a call to boycott the ‘Adudham-Andhra’ sports meet scheduled to begin on Tuesday. Volunteers at a few districts have expressed their descent in public over the poor salaries and uncertainty over the service.

State government in October 2019 recruited 2.62 lakh volunteers across the state. The government offered Rs.5,000 honorarium to each volunteer for rendering their service in delivering government schemes to the public. Volunteers are playing key role in delivering welfare schemes and many of them are working round the clock to fulfill their duties.

Volunteer system played a key role I’m surveys taken up by various government departments and a few key leaders of YSRCP including Vijaya Sai Reddy openly commented that volunteers are their private army and majority of them are party workers.

However, volunteers started expressing their descent with poor salaries and heavy work burden. 

A few senior IAS officers swung into action and to prevent the strike of volunteers and failed.