Protest by Suwidha staff continues

Nikhila Pant Dhawan

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, January 3

Contractual Suwidha employees of the district extended their support to the Punjab State Suwidha Centre Contractual Employees’ Union and took part in a protest staged by the union outside the office of the Director of Governance Reforms in Chandigarh today.

The contractual Suwidha employees have been protesting for the past 119 days in favour of their demands, including regularisation of services, in Bathinda.

Raising slogans against the state government, the protesters said the announcement made by the state government regarding regularisation of close to 27,000 employees’ services was just a poll stunt as a majority of the selected contractual employees were yet to hear a word about the government notification.

Elaborating on the union’s demands, state president Ravinder Singh said, “Suwidha employees have been working on a contractual basis since 2003 and we were hired on the assurance that our jobs would be regularised after a few years of the service, but the promise was not kept. In fact, to add to our woes, the state government set up Sewa Kendras and outsourced the work to private companies.”

“In August this year, the state government issued notices to us asking us to either join the company, which was operating the Sewa Kendras, or be ready for termination,” he added.

He said when the government announced that it would regularise the services of more than 27,000 contractual employees, the Suwidha Centre employees were bogged down by the fact that the staff of Suwidha centres were not included in the list.

“The government has not considered the demands of almost 1,200 contractual employees working at Suwidha Centres across the state yet. On one hand, it is issuing notes announcing that the employees working on a contractual basis will be made to work on contract so that they may be regularised after a few years while on the other, it is asking the employees to start working on an outsourcing basis,” he said.

After the employees stalled all work, they were promised that their demands would be taken up during the current Assembly session. “This promise, like earlier promises, was not kept by the state government. We will now gherao the SAD ministers and leaders wherever they go to address public gatherings,” added the state president of the Punjab State Suwidha Centre Contractual Employees’ Union.