Shadow Correspondent
Jammu, DEC, 21
Flaying the suppression, exploitation and harassment of lower rung employees by successive State Governments, Mr. Harsh Dev Singh Chairman JKNPP and Former Minister sought release of long pending wages and regularization of services of DRWs, Need based workers, Casual labourers and contractuals working in various government departments including PHE, M&RE, PWD, I&FC, Female multi-purpose health workers, NRHM employees, Anganwadi workers, MG-NREGA employees besides SPOs, Contractual lecturers and other lower rung employees. He was addressing a press conference in Jammu.
Lambasting the State government for its callous attitude towards nearly 62000 DRW’s, Need based workers and Casual labourers working in various departments viz-a-viz PDD, PWD, PHE, R&B, I&FC, Health & Medical Education, Forest, Horticulture, Agriculture, TDAs, Social Welfare who were forced to work like bonded labourers without paying their meager wages for several years. He said that they had been languishing in open protesting for their genuine demands of regularization of services and release of long pending wages but regretted that BJP despite being an alliance partner in the previous government had failed to project the issues of Daily Wagers inside the Assembly.
Deploring the miserable plight of the Female Multipurpose Health Workers (FMPHWs), he said that the issue of their salary head under Health & Family welfare had not been resolved despite continuous hard struggle and the erstwhile BJP-PDP government had divested them of their due wages for a long time.
He lampooned the Saffron slogan of ‘Beti Padhao, Beti Bachao’ as a cruel joke sprinkling salts on the wounds of the daughters of the soil who were batton charged by the police during the dark rule of sinister combine.
He lamented that while the families of such employees were pushed to starvation and other miseries, the power intoxicated ex-Saffron MLA’s had doubled their salaries and other perks in one voice during their tenure.
Expressing his anguish over the exploitation of thousands of NHRM employees seeking regularization of their services, Mr. Harsh Dev Singh said that these employees included doctors, ASHA workers, paramedics and managerial staff who were working tirelessly and selflessly on paltry wages despite all the difficulties they were confronted with.
He said that instead of acknowledging their contribution in the implementation of rural health mission and improvement of health status of the poor especially of mothers and infants in the villages, the State government was treating them like expendables. Likewise, Anganwari workers and other lower rung employees were harassed by the previous ominous BJP-PDP combine who had been left in lurch under the open skies with no wages to them for several months. Several such employees were also terminated from their services which had put their future in dark, Harsh rued. Supporting the cause of MG-NREGA employees working on contractual basis for the last around 10 years since the launch of the flagship scheme in the state, Mr. Singh said that thousands of highly qualified youth had been engaged under the scheme by the Rural Development Deptts as Programme Officers, Technical Assistants, GRS, MIS operators, Accounts Assistants, Social Auditors and Adm. Assistants on consolidated basis since the launch of the scheme without revising their salaries or framing any policy with respect to their regularization.
