End exploitation of daily wagers, don’t delay their regularization: G H Mir

Srinagar/Nov,3: Apni Party senior vice president Ghulam Hassan Mir on Tuesday reiterated Party’s demand for regularization of daily rated workers of Jammu and Kashmir.
In a statement issued here, Mir expressed deep concern over the delay in permanent absorption of daily rated, need-based, consolidated, contingency paid, HDF and NYC workers who are unnecessarily being pushed from pillar to post for the fulfillment of their genuine demands. He said that there are over one lakh such workers in J&K who are working tirelessly in various departments like PHE, PDD, Forest, Wild Life, Command Area Development, Irrigation, Agriculture and R&B for the last over two decades.
“It is highly unfortunate that despite commitments made with this workforce by the successive governments, the present dispensation has also failed miserably to address their genuine demands particularly their regularization,” Mir observed. Apni Party senior vice president said that these hapless workers are being paid peanuts in terms of their wages and it is ironical that the government expects them to run their day-to-day family in such circumstances.
Mir said that in the past, J&K governments had issued SRO classifying daily wagers, need-based and other contingency paid workers under-skilled, semi-skilled, and unskilled categories and even their pay bands were also notified. “But nothing concrete was done in this regard and the government of J&K is even delaying applicability of minimum wages Act for these poor labourers.”
Mir said that there are more than five lakh families whose welfare is indirectly related to the regularization of the daily wagers, need-based and contingency paid, consolidated, HDF, and NYC workers across Jammu and Kashmir. “The present dispensation should deal with this issue on humanitarian grounds,” Mir stressed.
The Apni Party senior vice president also appealed the Lt. Governor Manoj Sinha, to release wages of all such hapless workers and also enhance the same as per the Minimum Wages Act that is in vogue across the country.