Who sealed sales tax office staircase?

A PIQUANT situation confronted the sales tax employees and officers when they came to the office on Monday morning following a two-day holiday. They found the stairs leading to the office sealed with bricks and mortar. A wall prevented them from resuming work.

A PIQUANT situation confronted the sales tax employees and officers when they came to the office on Monday morning following a two-day holiday.
They found the stairs leading to the office sealed with bricks and mortar. A wall prevented them from resuming work.

HT Image

There was no way in which officers could have gone to the first floor of the building, which houses the sales tax department.

Meanwhile, the rumour mills worked overtime. Some said it was the handiwork of shopowners on the ground floor. Others said the Allahabad Development Authority had sealed the staircase.

Allahabad Development Authority vice-chairman Raja Ram Upadhyay said some ADA engineers had got the staircase sealed, probably on an HC order. But, he was not sure whether such an order existed, as the engineers who had carried out the job had gone to Naini on official duty. He said he would try to find a solution to the problem.

Some shopkeepers, he said, had complained that their business was being affected by parking space occupied by sales tax personnel.

Meanwhile, employees have decided to protest against the closure of the staircase and if the matter is not sorted out, they might resort to a strike on Tuesday.