Lucknow, Nov 16 (IANS): With the Uttar Pradesh government not coming forward for negotiations with agitating state employees, the state-wide strike supported by 200 employees' unions continued for the fifth day Saturday, officials said.

Some hope of breaking the deadlock had emerged Thursday with the chief minister's office signalling it was making efforts to come to the table but nothing has emerged so far, union leaders told IANS.

The striking employees also announced Saturday that though so far they had not touched essential services, especially health services, employees from crucial sectors would join the strike in a phased manner from Monday.

Over 16 lakh state government employees have been on indefinite strike for the last five days over their 15-point charter of demands which includes parity of allowances with central government employees among several things.

It is after a gap of two decades that such a large number of employees have struck work.

Union leaders said that since the Akhilesh Yadav government had not paid any heed to their demands, they were also not interested in ending the strike now.