One worker critical, battling for life at SKIMS
Irfan Tramboo
SRINAGAR, Aug 20: Knowing the fact that the consolidated workers do not have any financial security, nor do they have any training of field tasks, the Regional Transport Office (RTO), Kashmir is putting lives of such workers at risk.
In one such instance, a consolidated worker of the RTO, Kashmir met with an accident after he was sent out as a part of a checking squad along the National Highway. The worker, who is said to be the lone bread earner of his family, is currently battling for his life at SKIMS, Soura.
Sajad Hussain Dar son of Abdul Rehman Dar of Hamdania Colony Bemina, was made a part of the team that was led by the transport officers of the RTO Srinagar. The team conducts routine checks of vehicles along the national highway.
While the team was stationed along the highway, Sajad was crushed by a car on Wednesday and is battling for this life with no help whatsoever in sight. The team was stopping vehicles near Noora Hospital near Shikar Gah, Lawaypora, along the National Highway.
It was when he was ordered to stop a particular vehicle coming from the other side of the road. To his misfortune, the vehicle (Volkswagen Polo) did not stop, rather, crushed Sajad under it resulting in serious injuries.
As of now, he is on the life saving support and has been admitted at SKIMS, Soura, where his condition is said to be critical.
Pertinently, questions are being raised on the need of taking such workers out for routine checks. These workers, it has been said, are not given any protective gears when they out on the roads, nor do they have any training for the same.
What’s more worrying is the fact that such workers are not even entitled to any compensation or any financial help from the government. While his family had only one earning hand, what is ironic here is that even his salary is lying pending for last one year.
His relatives told Excelsior that he is the lone earner of his family. “He has 5 sisters, and he has managed to marry them off, he has his aged mother back home,” a relative said.
When contacted, RTO, Kashmir Ikram Ullah Tak told Excelsior that he was sad after what happened to him. He assured that the department will bear all the medical expenses and that he (the worker) will also be taken to Medanta in an air ambulance for further treatment.
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