Jal Shakti workers stage protest at PHE Complex

Excelsior Correspondent

UDHAMPUR, Oct 3: The members of Jal Shakti (PHE) Employees and Worker Association held a strong protest at PHE Complex, Udhampur under the leadership of Som Nath, District president and senior Trade Union leader of Jammu Province, projecting their long pending demands here today.

A large number of PHE employees and daily rated workers assembled at PHE complex Udhampur today and started protest demonstration. They were shouting slogans in support of their demands including regularisation of their services and release of their pending wages.

Trade Union leader, Som Nath strongly criticized the attitude of State Govt and anti-employee attitude adopted by the authorities. He said during the Assembly session the Govt has not done anything in favour of the daily wagers. The Govt has not regularized the daily wagers and not given them their pending wages for six years.

The Govt always makes false promises with regard to regularize the daily wagers in phase manner but they have not done anything for them so far. NC Govt is also doing just lip-service. The Govt. said that the Committee will present its report within six months but one and a half years has gone but nothing has been done till date.

The Association has framed a case in the CAT in which there are 192 daily wagers but the official of the Jal Shakti (PHE) Division Udhampur i.e. Technical Officer has produced only 13 muster rolls sheets of the daily wagers. If the officials of the department donot produced the balance sheets of the 179 daily wagers then the daily wagers will intensify agitation and even suspend water supply if needed.

Som Nath further demanded implementation of Minimum Wages Act at par with other UTs, release of pending wages of the DRWs of PHE/ Jal Shakti, regularisation of the services of daily wagers and remove shortage of staff in Divisions, Sub Divisions and water stations and provide tools and other facilities to the field staff at pumping/ water stations.

Senior members of the Association including- Vijay Sharma, Dinesh Kesar, Vinod Kumar, Mohinder Singh, Ashok Kumar, Jagdish Magotra, Karan Singh etc also spoke on the occasion.