62,000 casual, need-based workers in state without salary for 2 years

Arteev Sharma

Tribune News Service

Jammu, March 5

For the past about two years, the government has failed to release the salary of nearly 62,000 casual and need-based workers working in various state government departments.

The new PDP-BJP coalition government has also not made any mention of regularisation of daily wagers and need-based workers in its “Agenda for Alliance” (Common Minimum Programme) — a document which is the ‘guiding framework’ for the government in Jammu and Kashmir for the next six years.

“I have not been paid salary for the past one year. There are daily wagers and casual workers who have not been paid wages for the past 24 to 28 months. We are on the verge of starvation but the state government is not concerned about our sufferings,” said Mahesh Sharma, a casual worker working in the Power Development Department (PDD). He added: “The government has made a mockery of the Wages Act and has never released our salary in time.”

In October last year, senior Congress minister in the previous Omar Abdullah-led coalition government Sham Lal Sharma had quitted office ahead of the announcement of the Assembly elections, accusing the government of “dilly-dallying” regularisation of 62,000 casual workers, including 23,000 working in the Public Health Engineering Department.

Tarun Gupta, president of the PDD Employees Union, said: “There are about 9,000 daily wagers and casual workers in the Power Development Department. The daily wagers of the department are getting their salary, but not in time. The need-based and casual workers are the worst sufferers of official indifference as many of them have not received their salary for the past one to eight years.”

Official sources said a Cabinet Sub-Committee headed by former Finance Minister Abdul Rahim Rather was constituted in 2009 to settle the issues of government employees. The subcommittee settled all issues concerning the employees, including the Sixth Pay Commission, but the matter relating to the regularisation of the casual workers remained unattended.

The casual workers have been working on a paltry sum of Rs 1,500 to Rs 4,500 per month, which is far less than the minimum wages fixed by the state government.

After the state government imposed a blanket ban on appointment of daily wagers in 1994, these people were engaged by various departments under different names such as casual workers and need-based workers.

Tanvir Hussain, vice-chairman, All Departments Casual Labourers, ITI Trained, CP Workers Joint Front, said, “It is unfortunate that the government is the least concerned about addressing the genuine issues of 62,000 workers. For them, Diwali, Holi, Eid and all other festivals hold no meaning as they do not have money to celebrate the occasions. They have been denied salary on one or the other pretext. We have decided to launch an agitation against the administration’s indifference.”

Chief Secretary, J&K, Mohammad Iqbal Khandey was unavailable for comment.