G S Asgotra
Jammu, July 13: The daily wagers of Power Development Department (PDD) of district Jammu and Kathua, who had pinned hopes on the Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) leaders, have been feeling deceived, as the PDD portfolio is held by senior BJP Minister, but the department has failed to regularize the left out daily wagers.
The daily wagers who have been giving services to department, round the clock, for the last two decades, have been feeling discriminated over regularization policy, which was implemented during the tenure of former Chief Minister, Omar Abdullah, who was then in-charge of the department.
As per information, the PDD has so far regularized only 60 and 321 daily wager in district Kathua and Jammu respectively up to 1995 and 1997, whereas the daily wagers of rest of districts, either of Jammu or Kashmir province have got regularization up to year 2005, in sheer injustice to daily wagers of both the districts.
Aggrieved Linemen informed Early Times, "only the daily wagers of newly constituted districts or those districts where daily wager employees are less as compared to Jammu and Kathua districts, have got the benefits of 'District wise regularization policy' and those district, where there is large numbers of daily wagers , they are still deprived of the benefits of same policy".
Daily wager, Parveen Kumar informed Early Times that due to biased attitude of government, there was no daily wagers left in Kashmir province, while thousand of daily wagers of Jammu province are still deprived of regularization, adding, "Due to delay in regularization, most daily wagers are compelled to do some menial works to make ends meet", he said.
Expressing their misery, Parveen said that for last 30 months, the department concerned has been not released our salaries, due to which, the condition of daily wager has been deteriorating and the department was indifferent to their plight.
"We repeatedly appealed to Chief Engineer, top official of the department and also staged protest demonstration but all in vain", he asserted.
An aggrieved daily wager, Sham Lal said, "15 years ago, I suffered an electric shock, while performing duty at Chack Hasla station near Bishnah and since then I am struggling for compensation but department concerned is still unmoved".
Sham Lal is not an isolated case who has been victim of electric shock while discharging duty, there many like him struggling for compensation and the department neither have compensated them nor regularized their services. |
