Punjabi University, Patiala terminates services of 20 striking sanitation workers

Patiala, December 20

Punjabi University has terminated the services of 20 sanitation workers, who have been protesting and dumping garbage on the campus for days, seeking regularisation of their services.

The university terminated the workers’ services owing to their absence from duty and failure to submit applications for contract renewal after completion of their previous tenures.

The cleanliness workers had been protesting since November 22. They had discontinued their protest for two days during Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann’s visit to the university. But the workers resumed the protest soon after.

The university Registrar, Navjot Kaur, in a notification said the services of 20 workers had been terminated. The notification stated that service of one of the workers was terminated for absence from duty since October 15, while that of the others was terminated for their failure to submit applications for contract renewal. Their contracts had come to an end on December 18.

The registrar said the concerned department did not submit the workers’ conduct report and their applications for renewal of services.

The action is university’s second against protesting daily wagers or contractual employees in a month. The university had earlier relieved its contractual instructors working at various colleges after they had held a protest demanding job regularisation in mid-November. However, the university renewed their contracts days later.

Had littered campus

• Sanitation workers started a protest on November 22, seeking regularisation of their jobs.
• The workers began dumping garbage on campus in protest.
• University VC Prof Arvind and faculty members held a drive to clean up the campus.
• Workers then discontinued their protest during the Chief Minister’s visit to the university.
• They resumed the protest as their demands were not taken up with the CM, as promised by the university authorities.