*Instructions of Cabinet not being taken seriously
Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Mar 31: In utter disregard to the instructions of State Cabinet, several departments have been soft-paddling on furnishing of information to the Chief Secretary headed committee on Aadhar based biometric identification and skill profiling of casual/seasonal labourers and workers (CSLWs), which otherwise is imperative for long pending regularization of 61,000 such workers.
Official sources told EXCELSIOR that the State Administrative Council headed by Governor N N Vohra in its meeting held on March 3, 2016 had constituted a high-level committee headed by Chief Secretary and comprising of Financial Commissioner, Plann-ing and Development Department, Principal Secretary, Home Department, Commis-sioner Secretaries of Finance, General Administration and Law Departments and Director (Codes) to look into the extent/magnitude of problems relating to casual workers-financial, legal and administrative that may arise in regularization of casual/ seasonal labourers and workers in different Gover-nment departments.
The committee was explicitly told to work out an appropriate policy outlining all possible options in this regard in a time bound manner.
Following establishment of PDP-BJP Government, the issue again received the attention and State Cabinet vide its Decision No.18/2/2016 dated April 27, 2016 framed Committee headed by Chief Secretary and comprising of Financial Commissioner, Planning and Development Department, Administrative Secretaries of R&B, Labour and Employment, Information Technology and Director (Codes) Finance Department to facilitate the regularization of estimated 61,000 casual/seasonal labourers and workers.
The Committee was asked to complete Aadhar based biometric identification and skill profiling of casual workers/ daily rated workers by an institutional mechanism.
Thereafter, Chief Secre-tary, B R Sharma on August 17, 2016 reviewed the progress with regard to Aadhar based biometric identification and skill profiling of casual, seasonal, daily rated and various other categories of workers engaged with various Government departments.
It was decided in the meeting that within next one month, departments shall submit in a prescribed format the list of all casual/ seasonal workers. It was explicitly conveyed by the Chief Secretary that on expiry of this one month period no such list will be considered by the committee.
However, several Gover-nment departments have yet not responded to the instructions of the State Cabinet and Chief Secretary despite lapse of several months, sources said while disclosing that soft-paddling approach of the departments in completing Aadhar based biometric identification and skill profiling of casual and seasonal labourers was noticed by the CS-headed Committee in its meeting held on March 20, 2017.
Noting with serious concern the dilly-dallying approach of the departments in uploading the information, the Chief Secretary has now issued fresh directions for strict compliance.
“Now, the last date for up-loading the information as well as for furnishing of hard and soft copies to the Finance Department has been extended till May 10, 2017”, sources said while disclosing that the departments have been told that it will be their exclusive responsibility to register the eligible casual and seasonal workers by or before May 10 failing which it will be presumed that the departments have registered all the eligible workers and no further extension will be granted.
The workers, who have not been paid wages for the claimed period of service, don’t constitute any category for the purpose of identification and skill profiling shall not be listed. Similarly, only such seasonal labourers/ workers shall be listed as have been engaged in any department for a clearly defined working season/definite period of time or period of a year and paid as such continuously for a number of years, reads the latest instructions.
“All the Administrative Secretaries have been asked to impress upon the concerned officers in their departments to take note of these decisions and have the entire process of identification and workers completed by May 10”, the order said.
It is a matter of serious concern that one after another extension is being granted for completion of vital exercise despite the fact that Government has made commitments on the floor of State Legislature a number of times that justice will be given to such a large number of workers in a time bound manner, sources remarked.
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