Meets 23 member delegation
Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, May 27: Lt Governor, Manoj Sinha today reiterated his commitment of beefing up the security of PM package employees working in Kashmir Valley besides redressing their other grievances following the killing of their colleague Rahul Bhat who was gunned down by terrorists in his office at Chadoora in Central Kashmir’s Budgam district a fortnight back.
Governor was talking to a 23 member delegation of package employees, Jammu based employees posted in Valley and non package employees who called on him at Raj Bhawan Srinagar today demanding relocation of package employees to safer places outside the Valley.
As per sources the meeting was held in a cordial atmosphere and package employees apprised the LG of their demands giving main thrust to their relocation in safer places. The Lt. Governor assured the delegation that the Government will do everything possible to address their grievances.
However Sinha was non committal on the issue of relocation to safer places while saying that the security of the employees will be beefed up and construction of quarters will be intensified.
The senior bureaucrats and Police officers including Niteshwar Kumar, Principal Secretary to LG, M K Diwidi, Principal Secretary GAD and IGP , Kashmir, Vijay Kumar, relief and Rehabilitation Commissioner, Ashok Pandita, Director Information and Nodal officer Migrants Akshay Labroo were also present in the meeting.
The IGP informed the delegation that within three years Kashmir will be totally normal and terrorism will be weeded out completely from the Valley and we will ensure full security to you.
However, the delegation made it clear that the security and safety of package employees as well as of their families is their main concern. The delegation informed the LG that other demands have no priority for them till their security concern is addressed. “What is the fun of providing other facilities when we are facing threat to our lives”, a package employee told reporters after the meeting.
He said that the LG heard their demands patiently and assured that he will meet them again in near future.
Meanwhile the package employees working in Valley reiterated not to join their duties and continue to remain on protest till their main demand of relocation to safer places is addressed.
The employees also submitted a memorandum to Lt Governor.
The memorandum reads “With high resentment and in the state of extreme shock and fear psychosis, we the minority community employees of the Valley hereby state that we have been working in the Valley from last more than a decade and from time to time we have faced a number of extremely vulnerable and grim security situations”.
It said “The episodes of 2016 unrest had already broken our spine, but the recent spur of targeted killings from 2021 with cold blooded murders of M.L. Bindroo, Deepak Chand, Supinder Kaur and many more have taken breath from our soul.
The recent killings had unfolded the major lapses in security but instead of working out a concrete plan to address the issues, the Government has failed to provide security to the minority community as well as the non-locals, the memorandum added.
The memorandum said from the first day of the PM package employees, an agreement was signed in the form of a bond, which stated that the concerned employees will be working under special SRO in which the salary will be provided by the Central Government but the services will be given to erstwhile State. In this agreement an employee can never seek a transfer outside the Valley, whatsoever be the situation. In any case if the employee move out of the Valley, he/she will forfeit the claim on the Job.
The memorandum said promotions were denied on the pretext that since the PM Package employees are appointed under special rules, the promotion rules were not framed resulting in the juniors appointed under State cadre getting promotions and the package employee was left with despair and desperation.
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