Excelsior Correspondent
UDHAMPUR, July 2: Senior vice president of PHE Employees Association, Jammu province, Som Nath, strongly criticized the authorities of PHE Department for not conceding the genuine demands of the PHE workers and employees and violating the Minimum Wages Act.
Mr Som Nath who is also president of the district unit was addressing a meeting of the Association for Udhampur and Reasi districts at PHE Complex, Udhampur. He said the Government continue to violate the Minimum Wages Act while the wages of workers have not been paid for the last 24 to 28 months as a result of which they and their families have reached the stage of starvation. He said Government has only fed these poor workers with false promises and did nothing for them.
The long pending genuine demands highlighted in the meeting pertained to: Release of pending wages; Regularization of all workers who have completed five years service as daily wager/ ITI and CP workers; Implementation of Minimum Wages Act by fixing wage rate for two categories viz regular and daily wager; Making arrangement of sufficient staff to man several new water supply schemes on which crores of rupees have been expended but the requisite staff has not been provided so far; Change of designation as per nature of job actually being done by the workers; Immediate payment to those workers who have been engaged in lieu of land donated to the Department; Enhancement of wages to Rs 400 per day; Release of 17% cash DA to PHER employees; and Making permanent the daily rated workers while implementing the4 fast track recruitment policy.
Mr Som Nath appealed the Chief Minister Mufti Mohd Sayeed and the Minister concerned to immediately release the pending wages of workers otherwise no wage no work policy will be adopted.
Those who spoke included Vijay Kumar (general secretary), Rattan Singh, Suraj Parkash, Baldev Raj (president Reasi), Makhan Chand, Jagdish Magotra, Shiv Lal, Krishan Chand, Kuldeep Kumar, Dara Singh, Charan Dass, Rajinder Kumar, Chuni Lal, Raj Kumar, Jabber Singh, Balvir Singh, Ved Parkash, Karan Singh and Shambu Dutt.
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