SAS Nagar, November 16 On the call of the joint employee forum, the 'pen-drop' strike by the employees in the local civil surgeon office and various offices under the district health department is continuing.

Giving information in this regard, the employee leaders Dilbagh Singh and Davinder Singh said that the Punjab government did not release the installment of dearness allowance on the occasion of Diwali due to which there is a lot of anger and resentment among the employees. Apart from this, many other demands including restoration of old pension, resumption of discontinued allowances have been pending for quite some time.

He said that on the invitation of the forum, all the employees are on strike till November 20 and if the government does not accept the demands, further struggle will be announced as per the decision of the forum. The leaders said that until recently, dearness allowance installments were released on the occasion of every Diwali, but the present government completely neglected the employees and did not release the installments, although the central government had announced the release of installments several days before Diwali.