JAMMU: Drawing the attention of BJP-PDP towards their tall commitments for empowerment of the youth, Harsh Dev Singh JKNPP Chairman and former Minister regretted the pitiable plight and most shabby treatment being doled out to the daily rated, casual, need based, contingent and contractual workers besides the gang coolies who were deprived of their hard earned wages for the last several months.
He said that the alliance partners who had been making loud pronouncements of ending all forms of exploitation of youth and working class and regularisation of all daily wagers at the time of elections had in fact ignored them completely by withholding their wages thus resulting in starvation of their families.
He was addressing the protest demonstration organised by the daily rated and casual workers near Lok Nirman Bhawan Jammu.
He also sat on Dharna along with former MLAs Balwant Singh Mankotia State President JKNPP and Yash Paul Kundal State President Young Panthers.
Demanding the rollback of controversial Govt. order no. 384 GAD of 2015 relating to termination of casual, need based and other contingent workers, Harsh said that the incumbent employees proposed to be disengaged have been performing their duties for the last 10-20 yrs on meager wages and their termination would tell severely upon their very existence. Reprehending the coalition govt. for issuing their termination order, Singh said that the move was aimed simply at ousting the employees engaged by previous govt. so as to make room for engagement of the political workers of the present coalition govt. Flaying the BJP-PDP combine for their highly vindictive approach, Harsh regretted that the poor daily rated and casual workers had been made the sacrificial lambs by the ruling alliance to wreck vengeance upon their predecessors. Calling upon the govt. to give the region wise details of casual, contingent, need based, Safaikaramcharis, daily rated contractual as well as gang coolies likely to be affected by the termination order, he said that suspicions were rife that none had been disengaged in Kashmir region and the order was being harshly and selectively applied only in respect of Jammu region.
Urging for revocation of termination order of such employees, Singh sought the regularization of all those workers who had completed seven years service as repeatedly assured by govt.
Balwant Singh Mankotia, State President while seeking the roll back of the termination order observed that the said casual workers had been working on paltry wages ranging from Rs. 2100 to Rs. 4500 in various govt. departments but had been performing the duties of regular employees. He said that the govt. deptts had been extracting phenomenal amount of work from such employees on the assurances of absorbing them in regular establishment after a fixed period of time. He regretted that rather than regularizing them after having used their services for years, they were being thrown out which was worst kind of exploitation.
He said that if the govt. had any objection to the mode of their engagement, the remedy didn’t lie in their ouster as the same would endanger their very subsistence leading their families to starvation.
Others who spoke on the occasion included Pushpinder Singh Manhas Vice President Young Panthers, Rajesh Padgotra provisional secretary and Yash Paul Singh Manhas Zone President.