20,000 employees to get regular jobs

Sanjeev Singh Bariana

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, March 19

The Cabinet has asked the Personnel Department to submit a proposal to regularise all ad hoc and contractual employees recruited through a transparent system.

The beneficiaries are employed in zila parishads, block samitis, municipal committees, municipal corporations, boards, corporations, undertakings, apex cooperative societies, education and health departments.

Talking to The Tribune, Ranbir Dhillon, president, Punjab Subordinate Services Federation, said: “The regularisation of services has been cleared by the Cabinet. At least 20,000 employees will be benefited. We know that the earlier government had intentionally delayed the implementation of the Bill passed by the Assembly.”

Employees of the Rural Development and Panchayats Department have already moved the Punjab and Haryana High Court, seeking regularisation of services. The court has put the state on notice for May 1.

The SAD-BJP government had passed a Bill in December last year. Originally listing approximately 27,000 employees, who are in the service for more than three years in different branches, the move will now benefit approximately 20,000 after applying the “transparent norm”.

To streamline the recruitment process, the Cabinet also decided “not to allow the recruitment of contractual staff against the regular sanctioned posts in various departments”.

Meanwhile, those who were employed for specific schemes which are no longer being executed will not be covered. The Personnel Department, in its earlier communication, had pointed out that since these projects were no longer running, the staff served no purpose. These employees were paid through funds received from the Centre, and the state would find it hard to manage funds for them.