Roadways contractual staff stage protest, demand regular job

Contractual workers of the Punjab Roadways staged a protest in Jalandhar on Friday as part of a statewide agitation, demanding the regularisation of long-serving employees and the withdrawal of privately operated buses introduced under the kilometre scheme.

The protest was held outside Punjab Roadways depots located near the city’s inter-state bus terminal under the banner of the Punjab Roadways, Punbus and PRTC Contract Workers Union.

The protesting workers also raised the issue of the continued detention of their union members. They were arrested during a protest against the kilometre scheme in November.

Highlighting these concerns, Resham Singh Gill, state president of the union, further said no new government buses had been added to the fleet in the past four years even as more than 500 buses had turned unfit during the same period. He also alleged that recruitment in the department was continuing through outsourcing while none of the contractual employees had been regularised so far.

State general secretary Shamsher Singh Dhillon said many workers had been serving in the department on contract or through outsourcing for more than a decade who are yet to be regularised.

The union also announced that if their demands were not addressed, it would begin a relay hunger strike from March 9 in Mohali during the Punjab Assembly session.