PDD employees allege discrimination

Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, July 13: All J&K PDD Employees Union and Daily Wagers Union (Jammu province) has alleged discrimination against the PDD workers from Jammu and Kathua districts.
In a meeting of both the unions held here today, the trade unionists pointed out that PDD authorities issued different orders of regularization of daily wagers (PDL/TDL) for different districts, causing partiality with many workers. The workers of Jammu and Kathua districts were facing sheer discrimination. They said Jammu is the largest district in Jammu province. Only 321 daily wagers have been regularized in Jammu district whereas, only 60 in district Kathua.
On comparing with other districts of Jammu, it has been observed that daily wagers of Udhampur, Doda, Rajouri and Poonch have been regularized up to 2004 whereas, the daily wagers of district Jammu and Kathua up to 1997 and  March 1995. This type of discrimination with the employees from Jammu and Kathua districts is creating strong resentment among the PDD workers.
They urged the PDD Minister (DyCM) Dr Nirmal Singh to provide justice to them, otherwise  workers from Kathua and Jammu districts will be compelled to launch strong agitation. They said that many posts are lying vacant in two districts and all other daily wagers/ consolidated workers should be cleared for regularization up to 2005  without any bias attitude as done in Kashmir. In Kashmir all the daily in PDD stand regularized and there is no one felt uncovered. They also criticized Chief Engineer M&RE Jammu for its negative attitude.
Prominent among those present in the meeting included Arvind Sharma, Gul Mohd Bhat, Vinod Sharma, Bharat Singh, Ashwani Kumar, Raj Kumar, Ajay Sharma, Parveen Kumar, Arvind and Neeraj.