At least four groups of public servants moved towards industrial action on Saturday over allowances they say Budget 2027 left out, two days after public service engineers struck over the same grievance.
The Irrigation Technical Assistants’ Association said more than 450 technical assistant officers of the Irrigation Department will withdraw from duties from 15 to 17 November, according to a statement reported by Hiru News.
The association is pressing two demands: that the field allowance be raised from Rs 300 to Rs 3,000, and that officers receive a monthly field transport allowance of Rs 15,000 to cover the cost of travelling to sites. It says it has raised these grievances with the authorities on several previous occasions, and that the 2027 budget proposals offered no adequate remedy.
Rainfall data among the withdrawn duties
The association said that during the three days its officers will stop field construction work, daily water operations and the provision of rainfall data. It warned of continuous trade union action if the demands are not settled quickly.
That timing overlaps an active weather emergency. The Disaster Management Centre reported on Saturday that 2,676 people have been affected by adverse weather, the Irrigation Department has three southern rivers at or near flood level, and the sluice gates of 40 major reservoirs have been opened. Neither filing says what contingency, if any, the department has made for rainfall reporting during the stoppage.
Disaster relief officers, management services, doctors
Separately, the chairman of the Disaster Relief Services Officers’ trade union, Palitha Kumara, said members will strike from 16 November, saying the government has delivered nothing it promised in the budget.
The Sri Lanka Management Services Association has also decided on trade union action, protesting the failure to grant an interim allowance of at least Rs 25,000 to all public servants, including management service officers.
The Government Medical Officers’ Association is to hold a special general meeting on 19 November to decide its own response to the budget.
The actions follow the public service engineers’ strike on 13 November over an allowance left out of the budget.
Sourcing notes
Both filings are Hiru News reports and no other reachable verified newsroom had carried either story at the time of writing; Ada Derana, which covered the irrigation action, returns an access-denied page to this desk.
The English headline on the disaster-relief filing says the strike begins “from tomorrow”, but the Sinhala body says අනිද්දා (16) — the day after tomorrow, the 16th. The date in the body is used here.
Neither filing gives the government’s response, says how many disaster-relief or management-service officers are involved, or states whether essential services will be maintained.