Chennai: Tamil Nadu government on July 4 hardened its stand against its striking employees, with the Governor P S Ramamohan Rao issuing an Ordinance, arming the government with powers to dismiss them, even as the work in the government offices remained disrupted on the third day of the indefinite stir on July 4.

Official sources said an Ordinance, amending the Essential Services Maintenance Act (ESMA), which empowered the government to summarily dismiss any employee straight away for participating in the strike, has been promulgated.

The government dismissed five leaders of the secretariat staff association, including its president Pandurangan and general secretary Gopinath. The dismissal orders were despatched to their residences, the sources said.

The orders said their services were being terminated for leaving the work abruptly on July 1 and for unauthorised absence from the work on July 2 and 3. These leaders have already been arrested under provisions of ESMA.

Though the government claimed better attendance in the government offices, official work remained paralysed for the third consecutive day.

Despite threat of invoking ESMA against the employees who did not report for duty by July 3, most of the staff abstained from work for the third day in succession, demanding restoration of curtailed benefits and a rollback in the pension cut.

PTI