Punjab ministerial staff walk out on 8 September over unpaid dearness allowance

Ministerial staff across Punjab government offices stayed away on 8 September. The Sanjha Mulazam Manch and the Sanjha Mulazam and Pensioners Front had set 7 September as the last day for the Aam Aadmi Party government to withdraw show-cause notices issued after a mass casual leave on 27 August. The notices stayed. The second walkout went ahead.

Industries Minister and state AAP president Aman Arora called the strike illegal. He said the dearness allowance dispute is sub judice. The state has filed a special leave petition in the Supreme Court against a Punjab and Haryana High Court order that told it to release pending DA. "The government will take action as per law if the public faces inconvenience," Arora said. He added that the government had already addressed 60 percent of the DA demand for 85,000 employees recruited after July 2020 and was willing to talk about salary parity with the Centre for the rest.

The unions reject that arithmetic. They say most of those 85,000 recruits are still on a three-year probation on a fixed salary, so a DA announcement does not reach their pay slips. Their list is longer than one allowance. They want 18 percent pending DA released, the 2.59 multiplication factor applied to pensions, the Old Pension Scheme restored, contract staff regularised, and minimum pay scales for honorarium and incentive workers.

More than three lakh government employees joined the 27 August leave. Over 3.5 lakh pensioners backed them. After that day, departments were told to treat the absence as unauthorised and to issue show-cause notices. The 8 September action is aimed as much at those notices as at the unpaid DA. Unions say heads of department have been told to explain the 27 August absence. Staff who take 8 September off now risk a second notice.

Finance Minister Harpal Singh Cheema, Arora and Social Security Minister Baljit Kaur held a joint briefing on 3 September. They said the government was ready to sit with the unions and defended the state's record on salaries and arrears. The three ministers were sent out after the High Court order and before the second leave date. The outreach did not produce a written settlement by 7 September.

Not every public service is meant to stop. State buses are to ply. Government hospitals and schools are to stay open because doctors, paramedics and teachers are not part of the ministerial cadre on leave. The practical test is the Civil Secretariat and the 40 directorates in Chandigarh, plus district mini-secretariats. Files that need a clerk's movement will wait. Files that need a doctor will not, if the roster holds.

The calendar after 8 September is already printed. Unions have listed protests outside ministers' residences on 12 and 13 September, outside AAP MLA homes on 19 and 20 September, an Employees' Assembly on 30 September, a rally in Sangrur on 10 October, and a further two-day mass leave on 21 and 22 October if the demands stay unmet. Sangrur is Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann's home district. The choice of venue is not accidental.

The legal fork is the SLP. If the Supreme Court stays the High Court direction, the government can keep saying the matter is before the court. If it does not, the unpaid DA becomes an order the state has already lost once. Either way, a second mass leave inside two weeks tells the secretariat that the 27 August turnout was not a one-day event.

Arora's warning about inconvenience is the only public enforcement line so far. He has not named a service that will be declared essential beyond hospitals, schools and buses. The ministerial staff who process those declarations are the people who stayed home.