Public seethe as OAS strike cripples essential services

As the state grapples with floods and the government faces mounting pressure over ensuring smooth and incident-free completion of Rath Yatra rituals along with paddy procurement across districts, the mass leave and pen-down strike by OAS and ORS officers to protest the assault on additional commissioner of Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation Ratnakar Sahoo has pushed the administration to the brink.

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Notwithstanding the serious problems faced by common citizens in availing public services, around 1,500 OAS and ORS officers working in more than 20 districts, including Cuttack, Khurda, Ganjam, Balangir, Mayurbhanj, Angul, Kendrapara, Sambalpur and Koraput continued their indefinite mass leave, disrupting day-to-day government work.

The protest also hampered administrative services in Lok Seva Bhawan here and other government establishments in the capital city. Apart from the OAS and ORS bodies at the state and district-level, a dozen of other employees associations including Odisha Engineers' Service Association have also extended their support to the agitation. The protest has left thousands of citizens to grapple with delays in availing a wide range of critical services from caste and income certificates to filing grievance for land mutation.

Students and their parents were the worst hit as the admission season is entering its last leg and they have to submit income and caste certificates in the schools, colleges and universities to get a seat.