The Uttarakhand government and its employees are headed for a showdown today on Thursday. While the government does not want them to go on strike for a day, the employees have threatened they would strike work today.

In a letter directed to all the heads of departments, the state's additional chief secretary, Radha Raturi, has sternly directed that leave to any employee should not be granted under any circumstances on January 31. Notably, the government has imposed a complete ban on the strike. ACS Om Prakash also convened a meeting of all the secretaries, additional secretaries and the heads of departments at the state secretariat on Tuesday afternoon to take stock of the situation.

Unperturbed by the stance of the government, the coordination committee, the umbrella organisations of all the unions of employees, teachers and contractual workers of Uttarakhand Purva Sainik Kalyan Nigam Limited (UPNL) held a meeting in Dehradun and reaffirmed that all of 3.5 lakh employees would go for the mass leave program on January 31 as decided earlier, come what may.

Recently the state government had cleared the payment of allowances due to the employees under the VII pay commission. The House Rent Allowance (HRA) of the employees was fixed at 5, 7 and 9 percent of the basic salary depending on the type of city the employee is posted. With it, the government abolished 15 types of allowances the employees used to receive.

However, the employees want the HRA to be given on the lines of the Union government where 8, 16 and 24 percent of HRA is paid to the employees.