Some of the officials and employees of the Dhaka Mass Transit Company Limited have threatened to stop metro rail services on February 21 if their demand for independent service rules is not met.
The officials and employees, under the banner of 鈥楧MTCL permanent officers-employees recruited through direct open recruitment鈥� have given three working days from Tuesday to Thursday to the authorities concerned to accept their demand.
The company managing director, Mohammad Abdur Rouf, said that they had already drafted the rules and uploaded it on the company website on February 16 for taking opinions.
鈥業t will take more time for procedures to finalise the draft,鈥� he said, adding that they are discussing the matter with the protesters.
He expressed hope that the protesting officials and employees would not stop working from Friday.
A press release, issued by the protesters on Monday, read that following their demand the senior officials of the company discussed the draft service rules in detail till Monday and assured them of formulating the rules soon.
The interim government鈥檚 adviser to the road transport and bridges ministry, Muhammad Fouzul Kabir Khan, gave a directive to DMTCL to formulate independent service rules on September 12, 2024, the release continued.
It further said that the rules were not being formed even after five months and due to the lack of rules around 200 officials and employees had already left the company.
Against the backdrop, a section of permanent officers and employees recruited through direct open recruitment gave the ultimatum till February 20 to meet their demand.
If otherwise, they will stop working from February 21, they added.
According to the DMTCL, currently it has a total of 900 directly recruited workforces from the ninth to 16th grades and 630 workforces from outsourcing.
In its under implementation projects the company has a total of 142 directly recruited workforces and 134 from outsourcing.
Earlier around 700 DMTCL employees from Grade-10 to Grade-20 observed an all-out work abstention between August 6 to August 19, demanding an end to injustice and discrimination in their jobs, including upgradation of their pay scales.
The authorities had closed down metro rail services since July 20 past year amid student protests and took a decision to resume the services from August 17.
Later, the authorities backtracked on the decision while the insiders said that the decision was cancelled following the strike of the employees.
Later the government resumed the services on August 25.
The services of the country鈥檚 first-ever 20.1-kilometre-long electricity-powered elevated and air-conditioned rail system are available on the Uttara-Motijheel route, which was inaugurated in phases since December 28, 2022.