On poll eve, Punjab all set to regularise 37,000 employees

Ruchika M Khanna

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, January 17

Ahead of the General Election, the Punjab Government is set to regularise the services of 37,000 ad hoc, daily-wage, temporary, work-charged and outsourced employees, who have been on the warpath.

The government will frame a law which will be passed in the Budget session of Vidhan Sabha scheduled for February. On Wednesday, it notified a committee  headed by Health Minister Brahm Mohindra with Finance Minister Manpreet Singh Badal and Technical Education Minister Charanjit Singh Channi as members. 

The committee will frame a new law to replace the Punjab Ad hoc, Contractual, Daily Wages, Temporary, Work Charged and Outsourced Employees Welfare Act, 2016.

Most of the ad hoc and temporary employees are in the Education, Health, Irrigation, Local Government and Public Works Departments. While a majority fall in categories C and D, a substantial number are in category B (law graduates in legal wings, engineers in local bodies, irrigation and PWD and officers in Punsup). Official sources say the issue of their pay protection is yet to be discussed. Some  are drawing more salary than the formula adopted by Punjab for new recruits. 

The government is clearly in the election mode, having chosen to mollify employees protesting for almost two years. The Act for regularising their services was passed in 2016 (during the SAD-BJP tenure) but the poll code was announced and it was challenged in the High Court.