Regularise services of all 70K, demand contract employees of Punjab

Rajmeet Singh

Chandigarh, March 23

The announcement by Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann to bring a Bill to regularise the services of 35,000 Group C and D contractual employees hasn’t gone down well with them. They want the services of all 70,000 contractual employees, including those working in boards and corporations, to be regularised.

Many of the employees hired under different schemes in the Health Department (12,000) and Education Department (15,000) have been working on contract basis for over 10 to 15 years.

As the broad contours of the legislation being framed is yet not known, anxiety has gripped the contractual employees who are hoping that the new government comes up with criteria that also includes the staff hired under different government schemes and not against regular posts in the bill too.

The Punjab Protection and Regularisation of Contractual Employees Bill passed in the state Assembly on November 11 by the previous Channi-led Congress government to regularise the service of 36,000 employees did not see light of the day after the Governor reverted the file to the CM’s office with six queries relating to pending court cases, reservation and funding raised on the proposed legislation. The issue was lost in the election din, as the model code of conduct for the 2022 Assembly elections came into force.

Not doubting the intent and intention of the AAP government to help the contractual employees, Ashish Julaha, leader, Contractual Employees Action Committee, said: “Most of the contractual employees have been hired under various government schemes such as midday meal, Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan, National Health Mission and Atma scheme, besides others. The government must ensure that these employees are regularised too.”

He claimed there was no need to take the legislative route as the Council of Ministers was empowered to regularise the employees.

A senior government functionary, however, said in 2017, the office of the Punjab Advocate General had advised the state government that the process of the regularisation of employees had to be in conformity with the law laid down by the Supreme Court in a 2006 case of Uma Devi versus the state of Karnataka.

AD HOC STAFF ACT PASSED BY SAD-BJP

• The SAD-BJP govt had brought The Punjab Ad hoc, Contractual, Daily Wage, Temporary, Work Charged and Outsourced Employees Welfare Act, 2016, to regularise 27,000 employees
• The Act was passed in a special session of the Vidhan Sabha after the SAD-BJP government had a run-in with the Governor, who had refused to sign the ordinance