Ludhiana | MC employees stage protest, seek regularisation of contractual employees

Working at the Ludhiana MC offices remained disturbed for over two hours (from 10 am to noon) as majority of the employees participated in the protest, and the MC offices wore deserted look

Disquiet over its long-pending demands, including the regularisation of contractual employees, the municipal corporation (MC) employees’ union— Municipal Employees Sangharsh Committee— staged a protest against the state government and the civic body outside MC headquarters (Zone-A) office on Thursday and handed over a memorandum to mayor Balkar Sandhu and MC commissioner Shena Aggarwal.

MC employees protesting against state government and the municipal corporation at the MC’s Zone-A office in Ludhiana. (Harvinder Singh/HT)

Large number of employees, including Class 4 employees, superintendents, secretaries, etc participated in the agitation and slammed the government over its delay in fulfilling their pending demands.

Working at the MC offices remained disturbed for over two hours (from 10 am to noon) as majority of the employees participated in the agitation, and the MC offices wore deserted look.

The employees said the previous government had issued a notification regarding regularisation of around 3,000 employees, and letters were also issued to a few of them, but the process was hampered due to elections. The state government should now regularise the employees working in different branches of MC, including sweepers, sewermen, drivers etc, the employees said.

The other demands of the union included payment of employees’ EPF installments not paid by the MC between 2014 and 2018, increase in pay scale etc.

Chairperson of the union Ashwani Sahota and president Jasdev Sekhon said a meeting was also held with the then MC commissioner Pardeep Sabharwal in May wherein they were assured that the demands would be fulfilled soon.

The MC commissioner, Shena Aggarwal, said the department would fulfil the demands of the employees’ union at local level, rest of the demands, including the demand of regularisation of contractual employees, would be forwarded to the state government.