Contractual staff hold commuters to ransom

Manav Mander

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Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, December 10

Commuters going towards the Jalandhar side from Ludhiana and vice versa were harassed as the Theka Mulazam Sangharsh Morcha, Punjab, staged a dharna on the Jalandhar bypass to press for their demands.

After holding a rally at the grain market, the members of the morcha blocked the highway from around 2 pm to 5:30 pm. It took more than two hours to restore a smooth flow of traffic after the protesters ended the dharna.

Harjot Singh, a bank employee, who was rushing towards his home in Jalandhar after finishing his day’s work, was taken aback when he saw the blocked national highway. “I was in a hurry as I have an important social engagement to attend in Jalandhar in the evening. But it seems I will reach there only by late evening,” he said.

Satwant Kaur, a senior citizen, said it was very wrong on the part of employees to block the national highway. “Will the government now accept their demands? It is only causing inconvenience to commuters and nothing positive will come out of it. I have been requesting the protesters to let us pass, but to no avail. All service lanes have also been blocked,” she said.

Suresh Singla, who runs an industrial unit at Kali Sadak, near the Jalandhar bypass, said he was going to his home for lunch and got stuck in the jam. “It seems now I will reach home only by dinner time. I had to oversee the packaging of a consignment that was to be delivered this evening. My hopes of getting payment after delivering the consignment, which I got with much difficulty amid slowdown caused by demonetisation, have been dashed to the ground,” he said.

Narinder Luthra from Hoshiarpur, who, along with his family, was on the way to Delhi International Airport to receive one of his relatives, said they would reach the airport late. “The dharna has been lifted but the traffic is not moving at a normal pace. It is already 6.30 pm and fog has started setting in. We will have to drive carefully in fog,” he said.

Meanwhile, members of the morcha said they had been pressing the government for the acceptance of their demands for the past six months, but to no avail. Gurpreet Singh said their main demand was that all contractual employees should be given permanent jobs. Twenty-three contractual employees unions, including employees from the Health Department, Education Department, mid-day meal workers, computer operator union etc are part of this agitation.

“Although the government in October accepted our demands and these were also passed in the Cabinet, no notification has been issued in this regard so far,” he said.

Officials from the district administration suggested that they could arrange their meeting with the Chief Minister, who was holding Sangat Darshan in the nearby village, but the protesters refused to budge.

At around 5:30 pm, they ended the protest seeing inconvenience to the public.