CHANDIGARH: Punjab Government has constituted of an officers’ committee to work on a comprehensive policy for the regularisation of about 45,000 contractual employees in the state. Meanwhile employees unions across the state have announced an indefinite strike from today.
The committee, headed by retired IAS officer Dilsher Kalha, will examine all the major aspects of such a policy, legislation, including its administrative, financial and legal implications. Secretary Personnel and Secretary Finance, along with a nominee of the Advocate General’s office, would be the other members of the committee.
The committee will submit its report within ninety days to the cabinet sub-committee, headed by Health Minister Brahm Mahindra and comprising the Finance Minister Manpreet Singh Badal as well as the
minister of the concerned department to which the employees belong, for final decision.
Though the Punjab Cabinet yesterday approved the regularisation of 5178 teachers and 650 nurses, the Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh felt it was necessary to have a holistic and wide-ranging policy on board to deal with the problem of the 51000-odd contractual employees, whom the previous SAD-BJP regime had failed to regularise.
Given the tight fiscal situation it had inherited from the previous government, Congress government was forced to delay the regularisation of these employees till things improved on the fiscal front.
The Contractual Employees Action Committee from March 16, they will be staging protests outside the residences of Health Minister Brahm Mohindra, Finance Minister Manpreet Singh Badal and Technical Education Minister Charanjit Singh Channi.