Dear Editor,
An important question that needs to be answered is – what is the future of employees serving under centrally sponsored schemes of government of India? The employees are neither fully owned by the state governments nor by the central government. They are appointed on contractual basis with a fixed salary and no other benefits like GPF, leave encashment, medical allowances, death benefits, etc., etc. The states refuse to give them benefits that are available to their own contractual employees saying that they have been appointed under a centrally sponsored scheme and are being funded by the centre where as the central government refuse to provide any long term benefit saying that they have been appointed by the state owned societies specially created for this purpose (implementing centrally sponsored schemes). Now the big question is that whom do they (employees) belong to? When it suits the state they apply all the conditions of the state on them and make them work as per their own rules and when it doesn’t suit them they simply say that you belong to centre – this mystery needs to be answered by both the centre as well as the state governments. This is a great human rights violation and totally against law. Even a daily wager gets permanent after serving continuously for some years in a particular department and also gets benefit like PF and medical facilities under labour laws. If these employees belong to the state then they should also get permanent after serving for seven years which is the rule applicable to the state government contractual employees. These employees also have families to support and have given the prime of their youth in implementing the central schemes in the country and now are over-aged to get into some other profession. The salaries are too low as compared to the profiles they are appointed on. In some cases a permanent class four employee is getting higher salary and benefits than a contractual centrally sponsored scheme officer. Plus it has created a great divide among the permanent and the contractual staff — the former treating the later as inferior. It is high time that the governments’ takes a policy decision on this matter and solve this long pending issue of employees serving under centrally sponsored schemes. Their situation reminds me of a famous line from a hindi song album ‘Tamanchey’ which goes like this – Naa huye baap ke (Centre), kya honge yeh aap ke(State). Hope some fair sense of justice will prevails upon our decision makers.
Risheesh Khajuria
Jammu