Excelsior Correspondent
UDHAMPUR, Mar 14: Water Works (PHE) Employees Association held a protest rally and demonstration at Majalta under the leadership of Som Nath, senior vice president, PHE Employees Association Jammu province.
Workers and employees drawn from Manwal, Mansar, Khoon, Peuni, Badigarh, Sundla, Thial and other far flung areas of tehsil Majalta participated in the rally and raised slogans in favour of their demands.
Speaking on the occasion Som Nath while pinning high hopes on the Minister for PHE, Sukhnandan Chowdhary, appealed him to fulfill the long pending genuine demands of the PHE employees including release of wages of employees for the past about 24 to 28 months and implementation of Minimum Wages Act as the workers being paid Rs 500, Rs 1000 and Rs 2000 per month.
Other demands projected in the rally pertained to regularization of daily wagers , who have rendered five years service as daily wager, ITI worker, CP worker but have not been regularized for the past 15 to 18 years. Making of adequate staff to man the new water supply schemes, release of 17% DA with effect from January 2014, benefit of higher education to qualified staff, enhancement in daily wage rate to Rs 350 etc were the other demands put-forth by the demonstrators.
Others who also spoke on the occasion included Vijay Sharma, district general secretary, Rattan Singh, Subash Chander, Suraj Parkash, Makhan Chand, Balvir Singh, Kuldeep Kumar, Shamsher Singh, Gian Chand, Charan Singh, Des Raj etc.