Excelsior Correspondent
Srinagar, June 4 : The Commissioner Secretary, Rural Development Department, Mandeep Kaur, today said that MGNREGA employees will get a salary hike very soon.
Speaking to reporters after inaugurating Shahpayeen Park at Chotipora Shopian, Kaur said that demands of the striking MGNREGA staff is “genuine”. “They have been working for a long time. Their demands are genuine,” she added.
She said that the issue regarding their regularizations is not within her competence but their salary enhancement is being done very soon.
The striking MGNREGA Engineers Association welcomed the announcement made by the Commissioner Secretary, RDD and hoped that the government will fulfill the genuine demands in the shortest possible time.
“We welcome the statement by Commissioner Secretary, Rural Development Department, Mandeep Kaur in which she accepted what we have been saying all the way through about the genuineness of our demands,” MGNREGA Engineers Association president Shahid-ul-Islam said.
“We hope that the demands are with met within the shortest possible time so that the general public is not put to inconvenience due to pen-down strike which we have been forced to resort to,” he said.
Work in the RDD in Kashmir has remained affected for the past several weeks as MGNREGA Engineers Association continue with the pen-down strike in favour of their long pending demands.
The Association also reiterated an appeal to the Lieutenant Governor to intervene for fulfilling their genuine demands.
Among others, the Association is demanding a hike in salary and policy for regularization as “we have given our prime of life to make the MGNREGA and other schemes a success.”
The Association said that the Government formed two committees to look into the demands but has failed to fulfil promises made from time to time. “Government agreed to our demands in principle and formed two committees. The committees made recommendations but were not acted upon by the government,” the Association said.
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