SRINAGAR : Security forces today foiled Secretariat Gherao by daily wagers, contractual, need based workers and others of different state government departments, demanding regularization of their service.
About 12 employees were injured when security forces resorted to lathicharge and used coloured water to disperse them while several dozen were taken into preventive custody, Official sources said.
Thousands of employees from different parts of the valley assembled near Exhibition, less than half a km from Secretariat here under the banner of Employees Joint Action Committee (EJAC). Raising slogans in favour of their demands, the employees started their march towards Civil Secretariat, seat of the government, including the office of Chief Minister and his cabinet colleagues.
However, a large number of security force and state police personnel immediately swung into action and tried to stop the marchers who were insisting that they should be allowed to move forward.
Later security forces resorted to lathicharge besides used coloured water to disperse the employees. Traffic on main busy Budshah Chowk to Batmaloo was disrupted for some time due to clash between employees and security forces. The EJAC had announced to gherao the secretariat, demanding regularization of the services of agitating employees.
They alleged that despite working for more than seven years in different government departments, their services have not been yet regularized by the government despite repeated assurance.
However, the present alliance Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and BJP government alleged that previous National Conference (NC) and Congress government was responsible for this situation.
The government has decided to constitute a committee which will check the records about the appointment of more than 60,000 daily wagers, contractual and other employees without any proper sanction.
The previous NC-Congress regime shortly before Assembly elections in 2014 announced to regularize all these employees who had completed seven years in service. However, at the last minute the proposal was dropped following differences between two ruling alliance ministers about the actual number of such employees.
The employees from Public Health Engineering (PHE), Power Development Department (PDD), Horticulture, Agriculture, Road and Buildings and other departments are holding rallies and demonstrations frequently demanding their regularization. (AGENCIES)
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