BENGALURU: Contract workers working for state-run electricity supply companies on Tuesday urged that they be made permanent employees as they had been selected according to the service rules and have been working on contract since 2003.
In a press meet held in the city on Tuesday, S R Sharanappa, president of the Karnataka Rural Electricity Workers’ Association, said there are 3,699 contract workers across the state who have waited for 12 years to be made permanent employees.
“From 2003, one of us has been assigned to each panchayat and has been working on meager salaries in the hope of becoming permanent employees. We were selected in compliance with the recruitment rules at the time and have worked for so long,” he said.
In many cases, the monthly salary paid to the contract workers is not sufficient to cover the cost of work, he said, adding “We are having to spend out of our pockets to continue working.”
The workers plan to stage a protest at Freedom Park on Thursday. “We will also approach the CM and appeal to him to resolve our issue,” he said. He added that a committee had been constituted to look into making contract workers permanent employees. A report was supposed to be submitted four months after the panel was set up, but it has not been done yet.
Pankaj Kumar Pandey, managing director of BESCOM and chairperson of this committee, said the workers had been hired to handle billing and collection for the group of feeders located in each panchayat.
“Officially, these workers are on contracts which are renewed every year. They are called micro feeder consultants. We (the committee) had a few sittings and have asked for opinions from various departments. Once this is done, we will submit the report,” he said.