The police lathi-charged protesting members of MNREGA Employee Sangathan, Uttarakhand, when they were rallying towards the Secretariat, in Dehradun in support of their demands, including permanent jobs, on Monday. The association president Sundar Mani Semwal said that they would not cower down before the ruthless police action. He warned that they would embark on hunger strike from Tuesday at the protest site in Parade Ground in support of their demands.

He further said that regularisation of their jobs had figured in the Congress manifesto and the State Government must act on it. “We will continue to protest in the Parade Ground until the State Government clears their demand for regularisation of our jobs in the State Government and releases the pertinent Government order on the matter. We would go to the last. The Congress government must act on they promised in their manifesto,” he said.   

A large number of protesters assembled at protest site in Parade Ground and started rallying towards the Secretariat.

The district administration had deployed adequate police forces at the protest site to ensure peace. The rally snaked   through various crossings before it reached the Secretariat. They were stopped at the barricade set up at Kanak Chowk a few kilometers away from Secretariat. When they attempted to breach the barricade police resorted to lathi-charge. However, no one was injured. later, the protesters staged a sit-in and shouted slogans against the State Government.

According to the protesters, they had submitted several memorandums, addressed to the state government, but to no avail. Ramesh Gariyal, one of the protesters, said that they have been working for the past ten years under several posts like deputy programme officer (DPO), programmer, computer operator, junior engineer Gram Rojgar Sewak and the like. “We are around 500 people  working under the scheme. The Congress had included regularization of our jobs in its election manifesto, but now as the tenure is drawing to an end our   demand has remained unaddressed,” he added.  In the evening, a delegation of protesters met additional secretary Jugal Kishor Pant and demanded redress of their demand. The officer is learnt to have assured them that the state government would take appropriate steps to redress their grievances.