PHE Dept employees demand salary

Tribune News Service

Jammu, July 22

Without salaries for the last six months, daily wage workers working in the Public Health Engineering (PHE) Department have threatened to suspend work if their salaries are not released immediately.

They alleged that the PDP-BJP government was following same discriminatory policies with ad hoc workers in the Jammu region as was the policy of the previous regime.

Under the banner of Waterworks (PHE) Employees Association, the protesters today alleged that daily wagers working in various sections in the department were not being paid.

Addressing a press conference, association president Shiv Kumar Sharma demanded that the department should fix minimum wages for the workers and the services of those daily wagers should be regularised which have completed five years of service in the department.

“Wages should be paid in the first week of every month and norms of wages of daily wagers may be fixed as per SRO-3. The pending 17 per cent DA instalment and arrears of the Sixth Pay Commission should be cleared,” Sharma said.

He said the seniority list of field staff and ministerial staff of all cadres had not been maintained for the last six years and as such fresh seniority list of both the cadres be issued to know the latest position”, he said.

The association has alleged that despite repeated request to the PHE Department authorities, they continue to violate the Minimum Wages Act and daily wagers have been working on the paltry sum of Rs 980 to Rs 4,500 per month.