JAMMU: In support of their demand of regularisation of their services, the casual workers of Power Development Department (PDD), who are on Kaam Chhoro Hartal for the last four days, on Thursday decided to hold protest rally throughout Jammu on 26th August, 2016.
Raising slogans in support of their demands at the Office of Chief Engineer, Bhagwati Nagar, the protestors urged the government to frame regularisation policy for all causal workers workers who have completed five years of service. State President, J and K Casual Labourers Union, Akhil Sharma alleged that despite various requests made by them the government has turned deaf ear to their genuine demand for which they are entitled.
“In case of continued silence by the government, we are compelled to go on strike and no execution of work will take place henceforth and we will not be held responsible for any lapse in this regard,” he said. Prese-ntly 3,232 casual/need based workers are serving in different divisions of EM and RE Wing, Jammu amongst which a good number of workers have rendered more than seven years of their continuous service at their respective places of posting, he said adding that it is unfortunate that the department has not been releasing the monthly wages to these workers regularly which has made them to suffer hard.
They demanded release of pending wages from Wages Head, regularisation and insurance policies for workers, filling up the 5,000 posts which were sanctioned in the year 2010, ending the discrimination with Jammu province workers and compensation to dead/handicapped workers.
Jammu Province President, Shesh Kumar and Vice President, Sham Sharma also spoke on the occasion.