Thousands of Tamil Nadu government employees struck work on Thursday demanding the restoration of some benefits curtailed by the government citing financial crunch, affecting work in government offices including the state secretariat.

The employees are demanding restoration of bonus, leave travel allowance and curtailed pension benefits.

They will resort to an indefinite strike from June 2 if their demands were not met, Suryamoorthy, president of Tamil Nadu Government Employees Union, and N L Sridharan, office bearer of the Joint Action Council for Teachers Organisations and Government Employees Organisations, said.

They also said they were ready to face the government's threat to use the Essential Services Maintenance Act against the employees.

About 1,000 employees, including 250 were taken into custody in Coimbatore for attempting to picket the district collectorate, over 1000, including 200 women, were arrested in Erode, over 500 in Chennai and about 500 at Madurai for resorting to 'road roko', reports reaching Chennai said.

Opposition legislators raised the issue in the state assembly, but received no response from the government.