Owais Gul
Srinagar: The daily wagers, casual labourers, ITI workers and land donors on Thursday lockdown all PHE divisions, offices across Kashmir region to mark a protest against the government for failing to release their wages from past 21 months.
The offices were locked down on the call given by Public Health Engineering Joint Employees Association (KPHEJEA).
The association president, Sajjad Ahmad Parray told INS that all the PHE division offices, sub offices across the valley were locked down by the employees today to protest against the delay in wages.
“It is unfortunate that the government has failed to release the wages of employees from past several months but at the same time is announcing additional one month salary to the government employees who will be taking part in election duty,” he said, adding that the government instead of releasing the wages of PHE employees are leaving them to lurch at large.
He said that the government has utterly failed to release the wages of thousands of workers, labourers of the department. “Delaying tactics are being used to withhold the salaries further. We have been pushed to the walls,” he said.
Parray said that the government is pushing their families towards starvation. “We demand the Governor Satya Pal Malik led administration to look into the matter at an earliest so that we could heave a sigh of relief,” he said.
Meanwhile, following the lockdown of offices across Kashmir, the Chief Secretary B. V. R. Subrahmanyam has called a meeting on Friday at 11:00 am at Civil Secretariat here.
The meeting will be held regarding the release of funds to the PHE and Irrigation and Flood Control (I&FC) department employees.
Parray said that in case the government will fail to take necessary steps in this regard then the families of employees will be holding protest on October 02 at Srinagar’s Pratap Park.
He said that later they will also lockdown all the offices across Kashmir region on October 05 and 06 to press for their demands.
