Excelsior Correspondent
UDHAMPUR, Sept 2: Senior Trade Union leader Som Nath today urged upon the J&K UT Administration to release pending 56 months’ wages of the temporary workers of PHE and also frame regularisation policy for them.
Addressing a large meeting of the PHE workers assembled under the banner of Water Works/ PHE Employees Association at PHE complex here today, Som Nath strongly condemned the attitude of the previous BJP-PDP Government and the State Administration of the J&K UT. He said even the present UT administration has failed to address the long pending issues of the PHE workers.
Som Nath alleged that despite representations to senior officers, bureaucrats and the Advisors besides ministers in the previous Government, the authorities failed to clear the wages of the workers, who are performing their duties at their respective water stations. They are facing worst kind of exploitation at the hands of the Government. No Human Rights body has even bothered to listen to the plight of these `bonded labourers’ in the J&K PHE department, he maintained.
He said these helpless workers are unable to feed their families and continue the studies of their children. Some children have dropped out as their parents failed to pay school fees. He said that Lt Governor and the concerned Advisor must take cognizance of the matter and clear the wages of the workers in phased manner, if not in one go.
Som Nath further demanded regularization of CP/ ITI and Land case workers of PHE, remove shortage of staff at water stations and other PHE offices, clear pending SRO-43 cases, conduct DPC at Divisional and Provincial level, change the designation of the employees as per their nature of work and also release wages of imprest workers engaged about 15 years ago.
Senior trade union leaders – Vijay Sharma, Dinesh Kesar, Makhan Chand, Balveer Singh, Shamsher Singh, Prem Nath, Baldev Raj, Karan Singh and others also spoke in the meeting.
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