Under fire from the Opposition parties and Government employees unions, the Manohar Lal Khattar Government in Haryana on Wednesday said that it has approved a proposal to regularise the services of its employees who are working on ad hoc, work-charged and part-time basis for the last 20 to 25 years.
The decision was taken by Chief Minister Manohar Lal under the regularisation policies issued in 2003 and 2004, said an official spokesman.
While the State Government has termed it as another pro-employees decision, the employees unions have alleged that the Government is trying to mislead them and the decision will have negligible impact on them.
The Government spokesman said that all the Administrative Secretaries and Heads of Departments have been directed to take immediate necessary steps following the pro-employees decision. They have also been directed to get posts created from the Finance Department in diminishing cadre so as to adjust such employees in various departments, he said.
At the same time, the Finance Department has also been advised to create posts of diminishing cadre as and when any department, board or corporation submits a case for creation of posts for regularising the services of employees in their departments under regularisation policies of 2003 and 2004, the spokesman added.
On the other hand, Haryana Sarv Karmchari Sangh’s general secretary, SK Lamba said that it is not clear whether anyone would be benefitted from such order. Employees who had been working from the last 20 to 25 years had already been regularized under previous policies.
“As no amendments have been made in regularisation policies issued in 2003 and 2004 by this government, how can they claim taking a pro-employees decision,” Lamba said while talking to The Pioneer.
He said that we have been demanding regularization of contractual employees as per the pre-poll promises made by the ruling BJP in the state.
The Haryana Government has faced severe criticism from employees unions and opposition parties over the issue of regularization of contractual employees.
The trouble for the State Government began after the Punjab and Haryana High Court had on May 31 set aside the “employee regularisation policy” whereby the previous State Government had regularised the services of
thousands of contractual employees.
The previous Congress government led by Bhupinder Singh Hooda had issued four notifications in 2014, three months before the Assembly polls, and regularised contractual and ad-hoc employees.
The HC ruling has implications for around 4,654 government employees.
The State Government had recently announced to file a Special Leave Petition in the Supreme Court against the decision of HC. However, the decision to file SLP was criticism by the Indian National Lok Dal, Congress and as well as the employees’ unions, who are demanding an ordinance for the regularization of contractual employees.
The issue had also seen heated arguments during the monsoon session of Haryana Assembly held in September.
Meanwhile, Haryana Sarv Karmchari Sangh has announced statewide strike on November 15 over their demands.
SK Lamba said that statewide strike by government employees would be observed on November 15. Before that, protest marches across the state will be organized on October 2 and protest dharnas will be held outside the residences of all ministers on October 28 in Haryana, he added.0