Excelsior Correspondent
UDHAMPUR, Oct 3: Water Works (PHE) Employees Association Udhampur held monthly meeting of executive bodies of both the districts of Udhampur and Reasi at PHE Complex Udhampur under the chairmanship of Som Nath, senior vice president of the Association for Jammu province.
Som Nath while addressing the workers strongly criticized the attitude of the State Government that thousands of workers in PHE Deparment were being paid Rs 500 per month are getting Rs 1000 per year and it was very difficult for them to survive on Rs 1000 for a year. He added that these workers have been regularly serving the department for the past 15 to 18 years but the authorities concerned have not kept any record of theirs for obvious reasons. He demanded that all the pending wages of workers should be released before Diwali festival.
Association general secretary Vijay Kumar also addressed the workers and warned the Government that they would be compelled to launch “No wages-no work’ strike in case their wages were not released immediately.
The other demands discussed pertained to Implementation of Minimum Wages Act; Immediate regularization of workers awaiting regularization for the past so many years; Revision of sanctioned strength of the department, as there was no revision of sanctioned strength of field functionaries of the department for the past 40 years; Meeting shortage of staff to effectively man the on-going water supply schemes; Change of designation as per nature of job being performed by the workers; Payment to those engaged in lieu of land donation; and Enhancement in daily wage rate to Rs 150 to Rs 350.
Others who spoke on the occasion were Rattan Singh, Baldev Raj, Chuni Lal, Suraj Parkash, Makhan Chand, Jagdish Magotra, Bharat Singh, Parveen Singh, Janait Ali, Shambu Dutt, Balbir Singh, Prem Nath, Dara Singh, Sukh Ram etc.
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