JAMMU: Minister for Public Health Engineering, Irrigation & Flood Control Minister Sham Lal Sharma on Friday evening resigned in protest against the failure of the government to sanction much awaited regularisation of daily rated casual workers.
Talking to STATE TIMES, Sharma said he has submitted his resignation to Pradesh Congress President Saif-ud-Din Soz at 7:00 PM .
“How can we ignore the daily rated workers, who are working since 1994”, Sham said, adding that it was decided at the highest level that the recommendations of the Cabinet Sub Committee on regularization of daily rated workers shall be got approved by circulation of the memo so as to formally issue the orders, before code of conduct comes into force.
The elections to the Legislative Assembly are likely to be held by the year-end.
The minister said that the casual workers engaged between 1995 and 2005 were supposed to be regularised with immediate effect as they have completed or will be completing 10 years of their service next year. As per the roadmap, the workers engaged after 2005 will be regularised till 2018 as and when they complete 10 years of their service. The government has already regularised the daily wagers engaged till 1994.
“However, the government is ignoring the demand of the daily wage workers even after the Cabinet Sub Committee (CSC) approved it,” added Sham Lal Sharma.
The CSC on regularisation of daily rated workers and others, headed by Finance Minister Abdul Rahim Rather had held two sittings last week and made recommendations about various categories of workers working in various public utility departments.
The representatives of daily wage workers told STATE TIMES that they were told on 22nd October that the government had approved their regularisation.
“In fact, such information was selectively leaked to media to divert our attention”, they complained.
They said the Kashmir centric government is showing little interest in regularization of daily rated workers as majority of them are from the Jammu region.
The government was supposed to finalise the regularization of the casual, daily rated and need-based workers of Public Health Engineering, Power Development and Estates besides other departments in the State before Code of Conduct comes in force.
Earlier, the Government had asked all the departments to give details about these workers.
The CSC meetings were chaired by Finance Minister Abdul Rahim Rather comprising of Rural Development Minister Ali Mohammad Sagar, Planning and Development Minister Ajay Sadhotra, PHE, Irrigation and Flood Control Minister Sham Lal Sharma, Urban Development Minister Rigzin Jora and Health and Medical Education Minister Taj Mohi-ud-Din.