Employees and workers of Palli Bidyut Samity observed their work abstention for the seventh day on Tuesday as part of their on-going protest demonstration at the Central Shaheed Minar in the capital.
They staged the demonstration to press home their seven-point demand, including removal of the Bangladesh Rural Electrification Board chair.
Protesters on the day announced that they would continue their work abstention on Wednesday as they did not get any positive response from the authorities concerned.
Palli Bidyut Karmachari Association president Tazul Islam told 抖阴精品 that several hundred employees and workers of 80 PBS from across the country joined the protest demonstration leaving their work stations while others observed the work abstention demanding an end to REB鈥檚 repression and injustice.
Tazul claimed that the work abstention excluded providing 鈥榚mergency power service鈥� to the people but included all kinds of desk works, meter reading, installing new meters, preparing bills and others.
鈥榃e have been continuing our movement since January 2024 against electrification board鈥檚 injustice,鈥� Tazul said, adding that most of their demands are addressed by the ministry concerned, but the board has opposed solving the problems.
Protesters are staging the demonstration as part of their 鈥楳arch to Dhaka鈥� programme and staying day and night at the venue since May 21 to press home their seven-point demand.
Their other demands include merging the REB and PBS through implementation of one and the same service rules, regularisation of jobs of meter readers and others, withdrawing false and harassing cases and reinstatement of dismissed employees, cancellation of transfer orders of line crew members, increasing manpower, and formation of an interim board to run the PBS until complete reforms are carried out.
According to the protesters, the authorities concerned formed committees in different occasions to stop the movement in the name of resolving the issues but no visible actions were taken.
They claimed that several employees and workers of PBS were sacked, prosecuted and transferred since January 28, 2024.