Power staff protest at Kangar village

Sukhmeet Bhasin

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, November 15

Power Department employees, on the call of Sanjha Forum, on Thursday staged a state-level protest at Kangar village, the native village of Power Minister Gurpreet Singh Kangar in Rampura segment in the district.

Employees from various parts of the state participated in the protest. The protesters raised slogans against the Power Minister and state government.

Union leaders said Power Minister Gurpreet Singh Kangar and Powercom management, in the meeting held on September 20, had assured the Sanjha Forum that after the Zila Parishad and Block Samiti elections, their issues would be resolved after discussing these with Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh and Power Minister.

Much time has passed after the elections but it seems that the government is in no mood to resolve their issues and is deliberately delaying these, they added.

They said the employees were demanding raising pay grade of power employees, promotions of all employees without any condition after 23 years of service, restarting Guru Nanak Dev Thermal Plant, Bathinda, and Guru Gobind Singh Thermal Plant, Ropar, linemen should be promoted from work-charge and RTM, contractual employees should be regularised, new recruitment of clerical and technical staff, vacant posts should be filled, eligible employees should be given promotions, part-time sweepers should be regularised and other accepted demands should be implemented.

Protesters also claimed that employees were highly irked due to the delay in implementation of these accepted demands by the state government.

They also warned the government that if in the coming days their demands were not implemented, they, along with other organizations, at the Sanjha Forum platform would intensify the stir and government would have to face protest of employees during 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

Seeing the gathering, huge police force, headed by DSP Gurpreet Singh, was deployed at the spot.

The employees from Bathinda region first gathered outside the GNDTP gate in the morning. They protested and raised slogans against the state government there.

They also urged the government to release the instalments of their pending DA.