Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Jan 18: Terming workers engaged in food supply as real force of the department, former Minister for Consumer Affairs & Public Distribution Department Chowdhary Zulfkar Ali said that he had initiated a process of giving big relief to workers but administrative hiccups and cool attitude shown by the officers blocked the way of taking the initiative to the conclusion.
He has appealed the Governor NN Vohra to mitigate the problems of the workers who are on strike so that there is no crisis of food.
The food and allied workers are protesting for the early redressal of pending demands. Their demands include fixation of Price Index after every 6 months which has not been fixed after 2012, loading unloading rates at par with FCI labourers, release of payments for taking medical benefit of ESI card, deposition of provident fund and timely disbursement of wages besides other issues.
Expressing concern over delay in loading and unloading of food grains by workers, Zulfkar Ali said that such situation may create crises in future if the problems of labour class is not mitigated. “The case of these labourers is genuine and I had initiated a process of giving relief to them. But I am surprised as to why some officers wanted to put the issue in cool bags’’, he said.
“It is surprising that labourers are having equal status everywhere but when FCI is giving sufficient wages, CAPD Department is depriving them to get even equal wages of FCI”, he said, adding “this issue is very genuine and he fully supports this demand of the labourers”.
“There is also need of timely release of wages to these labour class working in the department”, Zulfkar Ali further said, adding “when FCI workers are getting wages on due date, CAPD should also release the same in time”. He further pitched for depositing of provident fund money for the labourers besides demanding health and hygienic facilities for the labour class working in CAPD Department.
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