Bharat bandh: 'Measures in place to avoid inconvenience'

The Central government has taken measures to deal with the two-day strike called by 11 trade unions from Wednesday.

The government has warned employees of consequences including deduction in wages and disciplinary action if they take part in the strike.

In a directive, the department of personnel and training has written to the secretaries of all Central government ministries not to sanction any kind of leave to the employees during the days of strike.

The Delhi government has taken all preventive and safety measures to avoid any untoward incident and smooth running of public transport. The DTC has been asked to ensure maximum outshedding of buses from the depots so that passengers could reach their destination easily.

Maharashtra Chief Secretary, J K Banthia has said that the administrative machinery of the state government is fully geared to tackle the strike.

Earlier, the Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh had made an appeal to the trade unions not to go on strike.

"I appeal to the central trade unions to withdraw their call for countrywide general strike on February 20 and 21. Such a strike would lead to avoidable loss to our economy and inconvenience to the public through disruption of services," Dr Singh said in his message.

Senior Cabinet Ministers, A K Antony, Sharad Pawar and Mallikarjun Kharge had held discussions with the representatives of the Central Trade Unions on Monday night.

The meeting was called to convey the serious intent of the government to resolve the issues raised by the trade unions.

The trade unions have put forward a charter of 10 demands such as urgent steps to control price rise, strict enforcement of labour laws in all places of work, social security net for workers in the unorganised sector, end to disinvestment in PSUs and raising minimum wage to Rs 10,000 a month.