HT Correspondent
JORHAT, Oct 3: Members of the National Savings Authorised Agents’ Association in Jorhat Head Post Office and sub-post offices in the district have embarked on a five-day nationwide strike in support of their 21-point charter of demands, starting on Tuesday.
A significant number of small savings schemes agents, representing various districts across India, are participating in this protest at Jantar Mantar, Delhi.
Related Posts:
Binita Baruah, the working president of the Jorhat district unit of the Association, highlighted their grievances. She mentioned that the Ministry of Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSME) had ceased commission payments for several schemes, including Senior Citizens’ Scheme, PPF, Sukanya Samriddhi, Mahila Suraksha Yojana, and had reduced the commission rate from 1% to 0.50%. This has severely impacted the livelihoods of over five lakh agents nationwide.
Baruah further expressed concern over the lack of social security schemes like pensions or PF for these agents, particularly female agents. Despite the government’s commitment to women’s empowerment, these agents receive no such benefits.
Another agent highlighted that while commission was paid to post office employees for opening the aforementioned schemes, the agents responsible for bringing in customers received nothing in return. This disparity was considered unjust.
He also pointed out the discrepancy in treatment, where government employees receive incentives, regular pay hikes, and revised pay according to pay commission revisions every few years, while agents of the National Savings Scheme are seeing their earnings diminish.
