Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, July 18: While no headway could be achieved in the talks between Principal Secretary, Jal Shakti/ PHE Department and the leaders of PHE Employees United Front today while the strike of the PHE workers continued on the 27th consecutive day today.
Official sources said that a delegation of PHE workers today met the Principal Secretary, Jal Shakti /PHE Department Ashok Parmar in presence of Chief Engineer PHE Jammu- Munish Kumar Bhat at Civil Secretariat. The meeting commenced at around 11.30 am and during about an hour long meeting Parmar assured the delegation that he will try his best to take up their issues at the higher level and resolve it at the earliest. He, however, did not give any definite or written assurance.
The employees representatives including Ravi Hans, Hoshiar Singh, Navdeep Singh, Rajinder Singh Taj and Mohan Lal Sharma said that in the past, they had called off their strike merely on assurances several times but nothing happened after that. Therefore, they were not prepared to call off strike until an order from the Government is issued. They resolved to continue their strike and extended strike for next 48 hours.
The PHE Workers United Front delegation on the invitation from the Chief Engineer had also held a meeting with Parmar on Friday. From employees side, Rajinder Singh, Hoshiar Singh, Mohan Lal, Navdeep Singh and Ravi Hans participated in the meeting. Parmar held negotiations on behalf of the Government. But the talks ended in deadlock on Friday as well. Today was the second round of talks.
Meanwhile, the protest of the daily rated workers continued on the 27th consecutive day today. Under the banner of PHE Employees United Front (Jammu province), the daily rated and consolidated workers of the PHE/ Jal Shakti department are on strike since June 22, 2022.
The PHE workers apart from Chief Engineer’s office B C Road Jammu, held protest demonstrations at various PHE Divisions of the region. They were demanding regularisation of the daily rated workers, enhancement of Minimum Wages as per Central law in J&K UT and release of pending wages of 70 months of PHE workers.
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