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As J&K govt completes 1 year, employees protest for regularisation
The National Conference in its manifesto last year had promised that it will formulate a policy for regularisation of casual labourers, daily wagers, CIC operators, contractual employees, home guards and other temporary employees in a time bound manner
On the completion of one year of Omar Abdullah’s government, thousands of daily wage and casual labourer employees held a protest convention on Thursday reminding the National Conference government of its promise of their regularisation. The CM, however, said that the regularisation process has been started in various departments.
The National Conference in its manifesto last year had promised that it will formulate a policy for regularisation of casual labourers, daily wagers, CIC operators, contractual employees, home guards and other temporary employees in a time bound manner.
Thousands of such employees under the banner of Employees Joint Action Committee (EJAC) converged at Municipal Park in Srinagar and held a protest convention demanding regularisation of their services and implementation of minimum wages act.
“The convention we are holding today peacefully under EJAC is to make our voices heard in the corridors of government. The government and the chief minister Omar Abdullah had promised on the floor of the House that a committee will form a road map for the regularisation of daily wage and casual labour employees within six months. It is now seventh month and there has been no decision. We want a solution before the coming assembly session,” said a senior member of EJAC, Sajad Parray, who is also the chairman of Kashmir Public Health Engineering Joint Employees Association.
In March this year, the J&K government constituted a six member committee to examine the issues related to the regularisation of casual, seasonal labourers or other workers in the Union territory.
Chief minister Omar Abdullah had informed the J&K assembly on March 18 to form a high-powered panel headed by chief secretary Atal Dulloo with the sole motive to come up with a roadmap for addressing the issue of regularising daily wagers, ad hoc workers and casual labourers across Jammu and Kashmir. The announcement had come after a massive protest by the casual employees across J&K.
“We don’t want a confrontation. We don’t want to come out on the roads. Our people are already facing problems and we don’t want to increase their problems. We want to remind our MLAs from the government as well as the opposition of the promises they made in their election campaigning to our employees,” Parray said.
The government committee was given the mandate to “examine various issues, including humanitarian, legal and financial related to the regularisation of casual, seasonal labourers or other workers etc in Jammu and Kashmir, and suggest a comprehensive way forward “.
Chief minister Omar Abdullah in a press conference in Jammu acknowledged the issue of employees saying that they have already started work on the regularisation.
“We were sticking to our promises and all the issue we fought on election, by the time government’s time ends its report card will be presented before people. Just today, the education department regularised 860 CPWs, who were earlier on meagre remuneration. Similarly, other departments have also started this process...We are sticking to our promises and we will present our report card on all the issues we fought elections,” he said.
