Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Mar 8: Hundreds of daily wage workers of the PHE/ Jal Shakti department today staged massive protest near the residence of Jammu and Kashmir BJP president, Ravinder Raina, to press for their long-pending demands of regularization and release of pending wages.
The workers, under the banner of Public Health Engineering (PHE) Employees United Front, assembled in Gandhi Nagar and marched towards the residence of Raina, who assured them that Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha was sensitive towards their issues and was taking necessary steps to address them. However, a strong contingent of police stopped them and did not allow to move ahead. They resisted the police move but could not succeed.
Over 60,000 daily wagers, casual labourers and other workers are working in PHE and several other departments over the past two decades and are regularly holding protests in both Jammu and Srinagar for the regularisation of their jobs, implementation of Minimum Wages Act and release of pending wages.
The protesters reached Raina’s residence and staged a peaceful demonstration. The BJP leader assured the protesters that he would arrange a meeting between them and Sinha shortly.
Ravi Hans, Union leader said, “We want a meeting with Union Home Minister Amit Shah during his visit to Jammu to discuss our issues.”
Responding to Hans, Raina said he and his party always stood with the PHE employees in support of their genuine demands.
“We will continue our support for you. We have already raised the demand for implementation of the Minimum Wages Act with the Government in Delhi as we believe that it will mitigate the suffering of the workers till their regularisation,” he added.
After protesting for few hours, the PHE workers then dispersed.
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