Mangalore: A `Bengaluru Chalo’ call has been given and a local protest meeting is held today, Oct.21 for the purpose, to enforce the demands made by GP employees all over the state with CITU support from K. Yadava Shetty, local president and Jayarama, Secretary of the DK unit.

A protest march is on the cards from Bangalore Railway station to the Vidhana Soudha seat of power, at a time when state politics has become a muddy field of wrestling by MLAs.
Karnataka has over 5600 GPs in 30 districts, and the employees include tax collectors, clerks, accountants, sweepers and guards, about 50,000 in all. Their union under CITU is fighting for their rights since 2 decades, says a pressnote issued on the occasion. Presently, the DCs in state are on transfer, including DK dt officers .

The demands include a revision of salaries to a higher level. The govt reflects a split personality in administration with GP employees and officers fighting the MLAs and state govt. The state govt has collected a large amount of loans by way of developmental assistance, but this is either misused or left unused till March 2011. In Gulburga, the local GP employees who opposed outside contracts system in their spheres of activities, were denied their periodical salaries for 35 months at a stretch Yadava Shetty said.
The GP employees and CITU are now favouring joint agitations to realize their goals, say Maruthi Manpade (President) and P.M Nadagowda, General Secretary of KSGP Employees’ Association (under CITU) in Sampangirama Nagara, Bangalore in a press release issued on Oct.21 here.