100 Lehragaga institute workers face axe

Rajmeet Singh

Chandigarh, October 3

Nearly 100 employees of the Baba Hira Singh Bhattal Institute of Engineering and Technology (BHSBIET) at Lehragaga have been served one-month retrenchment notice by the Member-Secretary of the Board of Governors of the institute.

The board under the chairmanship of Technical Education Minister Harjot Bains, at its meeting held on September 20, decided to retrench the employees.

The notices signed by the Member-Secretary-cum-Principal of the institute on September 25 were served on the employees today. The minister said the employees willing to work would be adjusted in other government institutions.

But sources in the department said the employees had been asked to give an undertaking that if they wanted adjustment in other government institutes, they would have to forgo their dues. The employees would also have to withdraw the court cases filed in the courts.

The affected employees, however, claimed that CM Bhagwant Mann during an event in Lehragaga in May had assured them that they would not be retrenched. Challenging the retrenchment notices, the employees said the validity of the board was questionable as its term had ended in 2018.

An affected employee, Ajeet Singh, who had gone to the Punjab and Haryana High Court for the payment of dues to the employees, said the notices would be challenged in the court.

In 2019, the Capt Amarinder Singh-led government had proposed to close the institute and use its premises to open an ITI or a degree college. But in April 2021, he had passed the order for the revival of the institute. Accordingly, Rs 340.76 lakh grant-in-aid was released by the state in May 2021 to pay six-month salary to the staff.

Recently, the high court had ordered the disposal of the property of the institute to pay dues to its employees. The employees had pointed out that they had been waiting for their salaries for 41 months. Officials in the department said the salary and other dues of the employees amounted to around Rs 20 crore. Some dues of the employees had been cleared so far.