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Bowing to public pressure, the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) has decided to reverse its April decision to impose hefty fines on eight employees of the civic body-run Yashwantrao Chavan Memorial (YCM) Hospital for practising yoga during “duty hours.” The administration Friday issued the orders drastically reducing the fine amount and said that by Monday, the mention of “punishment” will also be removed from the service records of the employees.
“We have drastically reduced the fine amount of the employees…An order to this effect was issued on Friday. Similarly, the service record book for the employees will also not make mention of the punishment imposed…A separate order to this effect will be issued on Monday,” Municipal Commissioner Shekhar Singh told The Indian Express Saturday.
The PCMC administration in April last week imposed a fine – ranging from Rs 22,000 to Rs 56,000 – on the eight employees, which included one homoeopathic doctor who was on the verge of retirement. The fine amount has now been reduced. The employee who had been fined Rs 56,000 will have to pay Rs 8,000. Similarly, those who were fined up to Rs 2,2000 will have to pay Rs 4000. The civic chief said the fine amount, which was deducted from their salaries, would be restored.
The administration earlier said a committee appointed by it had held the employees guilty of practising yoga during working hours in October last year. The municipal commissioner had also ordered that the punishment should be mentioned in their service record. Doctors and employees of the YCM hospital then protested and approached the municipal commissioner to reverse its “harsh decision”.
The employees contested that they were not practising yoga during the working hours but were utilising their lunch time for doing yoga. They got support from Pimpri-Chinchwad Karmachari Mahasangh, doctors, social and voluntary organisations, and activists. The employees urged the Municipal Commissioner to reverse his order, and let off the employees with a warning. The activists had even approached Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis in a bid to put pressure on the civic administration to withdraw its order.
“The PCMC chief’s order is very harsh and unprecedented. We do not think that anyone anywhere in the country has been penalised for practising yoga…,” Dr Kishore Khillare and Dr Dnyaneshwar Mote, coordinators of Jan Arogya Manch, had said in a joint statement.
“The employees had worked hard during the Covid pandemic unmindful of the risk to their lives. And now, they are being held guilty for a mistake, which is not of a very serious nature,” Khillare had said. The Pimpri-Chinchwad Karmachari Mahasangh, too, has termed the civic administration’s action “very harsh” and sought a reversal of the order.
After the PCMC commissioner issued his order on Friday, the employees said the order was half-hearted. “We are happy that some decision has been taken by the municipal commissioner by reducing the fine amount. But we want the mention of the punishment removed from the service record. Otherwise our good service record will be badly affected. We have not committed any crime….We were practising yoga by utilising our lunch time. Is doing 20 minutes of yoga a crime? We have been repeatedly telling the administration to kindly reverse its full decision,” said one of the employees who was penalised.
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