BHADERWAH,MAR 06 (KNO) : Daily-wage employees of Public Health Engineering (PHE) Department Bhaderwah staged a protest in Office of Assistant Executive Engineers (PHE) Bhaderwah against nonpayment of their wages from eight months . Amid slogans in support of immediate release of their pending wages through their bank accounts, the protesters also demanded immediate implementation of regularization policy .
While addressing Mohd Sajad general secretary All Jammu and Kashmir PHE ITI trained workers association Jammu expressed the view that in the State budget nothing has been kept for PHE daily wagers at a time when they are without wages for the past over 8 months while the Government is trying to eliminate the poor workers of the PHE Department.He wondered that when thousands of crores of rupees can be made available for projects why not for providing wages to the poor workers. The other demands voiced in the protest included Release of wages which are pending for the past over 8 months; Implementation of Minimum Wages Act; Immediate regularization of workers; Revision of sanctioned strength of the department, as there was no revision of sanctioned strength of field functionaries of the department for the past 40 years; Meeting shortage of staff to effectively man the on-going water supply schemes;
Change of designation as per nature of job being performed by the workers; Payment to those engaged in lieu of land donation; Release of 6% DA installment to employees and workers from July 2015; and Enhancement in daily wage rate to Rs 150 to Rs 400. Workers also informed that they will start agitation by holding one day protest on all district headquarters in Jammu rfegion on March 08 if the demands are not redressed.Protesting workers appealed the concerned higher officers of the department and the Minster to intervene personally into the matter and release their wages.Others who spoke on the occasion included Ashok Kumar , Mohd Yousf , Vinay Kumar , Shaid Hussain , Suresh Kumar , Gayasudin , Shazad Ahmed Shah , Muzafar Ahmed , Suresh Kumar , Sunil Kumar , Ravi Kumar and others .(KNO)