Rural quota employees want restoration of salary

BANGALORE: In the last few months, Rs 3,000 is being deducted from the salary of over 5,000 government employees recruited under the now defunct rural quota. The employees staged a protest in front of Deputy Commissioner's Office on Thursday demanding the restoration of their regular salary.
G M Ravishankar, General Secretary of the Karnataka State Rural Weightage Employees Association said that 13,000 people were recruited by the government for various posts under the rural quota in 1998-99. However, the Supreme Court terminated the order and overruled any recruitment under rural quota. But, after evaluating their performance, many of them were absorbed back into the government service again and in 2003, the then chief minister S M Krishna issued a special recruitment rule and regularised their recruitment. After which revision of wages happened and salaries were raised accordingly. "In the last six months, the government announced that the revision will be only with effect from 2003, though we joined in 1999. Hence, they started deducting Rs 3,000 from our already low salaries," he said.