Excelsior Correspondent
UDHAMPUR, July 3: Water Works (PHE) Employees Association Udhampur held executive body meeting of both the districts of Udhampur and Reasi at PHE Complex here under the chairmanship of Som Nath, senior vice president of the association for Jammu province.
The speakers in the meeting strongly criticized the attitude of the State Government towards workers who have not been paid their wages for the past 40 months. Som Nath while addressing meeting stated that the Government can spend on Hurriyat leaders, militants’ families and other anti-national elements but the workers who have done their job have been awaitinmg their salaries for the past 40 months. Som Nath urged the Government to release the wages of workers immediately. He said the Government was asking for details of the workers after every three months but not regularizing them accordingly. Som Nath appealed leaders of all the associations of PHE Department to unite and be prepared for agitation as the State Government is not willing to fulfill genuine long pending demands of employees as well as workers of the department.
The other demands discussed pertained to Implementation of Minimum Wages Act; Immediate regularization of workers awaiting regularization for the past 23 years; Revision of sanctioned strength of the department, as there was no revision of sanctioned strength of field functionaries of the department for the past 40 years; Meeting shortage of staff to effectively man the on-going water supply schemes; Change of designation as per nature of job being performed by the workers; Payment to those engaged in lieu of land donation; and Enhancement in daily wage rate to Rs 150 to Rs 400.
Others who spoke on the occasion were Vijay Sharma, Makhan Chand, Parth Singh, Mohinder Singh, Dinesh Kesar, Karan Singh, Chunni Lal, Dara Singh, Balbir Singh, Prem Nath, Janait Ali, Lakshman Singh, Prabhu Dayal, Shanker Dass etc.
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