Though Chief Minister tweeted that 60,000 daily wagers and casual labourers would be regularized under a scheme for which a committee under the chairmanship of the Finance Secretary will be constituted to lay down the criterion for eligibility to regularisation process, but the announcement of the Chief Minister followed by the endorsement of the Finance Minister has not generated hoped but created confusion among thousands of casual labours engaged during last twenty years in different department and public sector undertakings (PSUs) of the state government. Though regularization statements of both the Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti and Finance Minister Haseeb Drabu are encouraging for the sixty thousand casual labours whose attendance and wage payments records are yet to put in public domain for inviting objections on the final lists of the beneficiaries updated by different department and public sector undertakings (PSUs) of the state government. Surprisingly even the administrative secretaries are not clear about the exact number of the casual labourers placed on the genuine wage list of the casual labours of government departments and public sector undertakings (PSUs) over which they are exercising both the administrative and financial control. The confusion is because of the government’s inability in maintaining the engagement and wage payment records of the casual labours and updating it from time to time and as such there is every possibility of fresh insertions in the lists of the casual labours updated during last one year by different directorate of different departments on the instructions of administrative secretaries.
The committee to be constituted by the government under the chairmanship of the administrative secretary of the finance department has to ensure that casual labours tipped for regularization have acquired the required skills and expertise during the years of their temporary engagement and are competent enough to discharge the duties for which they have been engaged.
Though constituting a committee under the chairmanship of the administrative Secretary of the Finance department for laying down the criteria for regularization of casual labours is a welcome decision, but before setting the eligibility criteria for regularization the committee should have been tasked the job of conducting the physical verification and details about the disbursement of all the casual labour put on the engagement lists forwarded by directorates of different departments to the concerned administrative secretaries. Administrative wisdom demands that the physical verifications and details about the disbursement of wages of skilled workers in departments like PHE, Irrigation & Flood Control and Power Development departments is thorough verified by a committee comprising of technical and financial experts to ensure raw labours are not allowed to take up the jobs of skilled labours. Above all the committee to be constituted by the government under the chairmanship of the administrative secretary of the finance department has to ensure that casual labours tipped for regularization have acquired the required skills and expertise during the years of their temporary engagement and are competent enough to discharge the duties for which they have been engaged.
