Relief for 25,000 contractual staff in Punjab as policy okayed

Tribune News Service

Ruchika M Khanna

Chandigarh, September 5

The Council of Ministers today accepted the report submitted by Harpal Cheema-led Cabinet sub-committee on the regularisation of contractual employees. Now, as many as 25,000 contractual employees, who have completed 10 years of service, will be regularised by the AAP government.

This is despite the fact that the government has failed to release the pay for August

to employees, except Class IV workers whose salaries were given today.

The first set of contractual employees to be regularised will be from the Education Department, with 8,700 contractual, ad hoc and temporary staffers (Group C and Group D) benefitting from the decision taken by the Cabinet led by Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann this morning.

Sources say instead of framing a law, like the previous Congress and SAD-BJP regimes (that did not fructify), the AAP government has taken the policy route to regularise all employees, who have completed 10 years of service. The staff will be absorbed in a special cadre to be created for them in each department within three months.

The sources further say later, 6,000 employees in the Health Department will also be regularised. Further, the employees in the Transport, Power and Personnel Departments too will benefit from this policy. Those being regularised will get the basic pay for first three years, as per the existing policy of the state. The government will have to bear an additional expenditure of over Rs 400 crore, by regularising the services of these contractual employees.

It’s a one-time policy on regularisation, said top functionaries in the government. This means that only those employees who have completed 10 of years of service now will be regularised.

After holding a series of meetings with employees’ unions, legal experts and officers in the government, the three-member Cabinet sub-committee — Finance Minister Harpal Cheema, Education Minister Harjot Bains and Higher Education Minister Gurmeet Singh Meet Hayer — submitted its report to the Council of Ministers.

Notably, the employees are being absorbed in regular service under Article 162, read with entry 41 of list-II of the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution, to ensure that they don’t suffer from uncertainty and harassment, and to grant them a security of tenure. They will continue in service till the age of 58 years.

MORE FISCAL BURDEN ON STATE FOR 3 YEARS

• After the regularisation, the state will have to bear an addl burden of Rs 400 crore/ annum for first three years
• For providing UGC pay scales to teachers, it will have to spend another Rs 350 crore
• In all, 400 new visiting faculty and 550 regular lecturers will be employed in 64 colleges

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