Working for Rs 2 per day for 17 years, Tamil Nadu man moves HC for permanent job

M Ravikumar, working as a a part-time sweeper in animal husbandry department for the past 17 years, said he had to give up education and was forced to work to sustain his family.

Serving as a part-time sweeper for a paltry Rs 2 per day in Tamil Nadu animal husbandry department for the past 17 years, a man has knocked at the doors of Madras high court seeking regularisation of his service.

A file photo of Madras high court. (PTI)

Admitting the petition by M Ravikumar, Justice M Govindaraju on Thursday ordered status quo on proceedings consequent to an April 19 last communication of the director of animal husbandry and veterinary services calling for interviews for post of assistants in the department.

The petitioner, attached to the sub-centre of the department in Vellodu in Erode District, submitted that he hailed from a poor background. He had to give up education and was forced to work to sustain his family.

Since July 20, 2000, he had been working as a part-time sweeper at the Vellodu sub-centre for a salary of Rs 2 per day. Though he expected his services to be regularised after two years, it did not happen.

To his shock, a notification was issued by the department to fill up vacancies to the post of assistants and his representation to consider his case was not taken up, he contended.

The department in its counter affidavit blamed the employment exchange for not sponsoring his name.

It was ‘inhuman’ on the part of the government to keep employees like him unregularised for decades, Ravikumar said seeking a direction to the authorities to employ him as an assistant in the department.