Rohtak PGI employees protest outside CM's residence

A group of outsourced employees of PGI, Rohtak, today held a protest outside Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini's residence in Kurukshetra to press for their long-pending demand of being brought under the Haryana Kaushal Rozgar Nigam (HKRN).

The employees had reached outside the CM's house without any prior information. They were detained by the police and taken to police lines in buses, to be released late in the evening.

The employees said 1,271 employees have been on strike since June and for the past two months they had been protesting peacefully in Karnal. They wanted to meet the Chief Minister to raise their issue but they were not being provided the opportunity.

Rohtak’s Healthcare Contractual Employees Association said the employees were protesting peacefully but they were taken to the police lines forcefully. Association’s general secretary Mahesh Kumar said the association members started a foot march from Rothak on September 26 and reached Karnal on September 29 where the Karnal district administration stopped them and then they started a dharna in Karnal on October 3. They were assured that a meeting with the CM will be fixed in seven days but the promise was not fulfilled.

Mahesh said “The employees have been demanding that their jobs should be covered under the HKRN policy but the demand is not being fulfilled. While the contractual employees of other departments have been covered, the government has been discriminating against us. Now we are being taken back to Rohtak in buses.”