Estates Deptt employees protest with empty plates

Estates employees carrying empty plates in hands, staging protest in Jammu on Tuesday. —Excelsior/Rakesh
Estates employees carrying empty plates in hands, staging protest in Jammu on Tuesday. —Excelsior/Rakesh

Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Oct 13: Estates employees/casual labourers held strong protest demonstration against the J&K UT Government for its failure to regularize their services.
A large number of workers of the Department, under the banner of Estates Employees Casual Labour Union (Jammu), led by its president Kuldip Raj Sharma, assembled at the main Division office near Shakuntla Chowk (B C Road) here today and staged protest demonstration. They were carrying empty plates in hands and demanding regularization of the casual labourers and implementation of Minimum Wages Act in J&K UT on Central pattern.
Many senior members of the Union addressed the gathering the criticized previous Governor’s Administration and BJP-PDP Govt for their failure to regularize their services. They pointed out that over 60,000 casual labourers/ daily wagers were engaged by the Government in various departments for ensuring proper functioning during last 25 years.
They pointed out that the UT Administration is likely to recruit 50,000 employees including 10,000 Class- IV employees as direct recruitment. Many workers are working for the last over 20-25 years and waiting for regularization. The Government must ensure their regularization without asking them to participate in the recruitment. They have already given so many years to the department but their services are being ignored which is great injustice to them.
The PDP-BJP Government issued SRO-520 and initiated process of regularization. The files were also submitted to the Finance Department but till today no outcome was witnessed. They all should be regularized in one go under SRO 64, they maintained.
The prominent among those who addressed the gathering included Kuldeep Raj, Parshotam Lal, Davinder Singh, Kewel Krishan, Krishan Singh, Vijay Kumar, Ajay Kumar, Inder Pal Singh, Sham Lal, Neelam Devi, Ratno Devi, Munish Kumar, Vikas, Aijaz Ahmed, Sat Pal, Pawan Kumar, Mulktar Ahmed and others.