PDD employees protest in Pulwama
Demand safety gears, rehabilitation for workers
Pulwama: Hundreds of permanent and temporary daily laborers of Power development department on Wednesday staged a protest in Pulwama and demanded safety gears and rehabilitation of the employees. They also demanded their regularisation and their timely promotions.
Employees said that it is mostly PDL and TDL workers who take risks while carrying out repair works during snowfall and ensure power supply to the whole J&K and mostly daily wagers get killed due to electrocution while repairing wires.
They said that they have been working without safety gears and other facilities due to which they often become victims.
“We have decided that we won’t take any risks and won’t climb poles without safety gears,” they said.
Manzoor Ahmad, a daily wager said that despite working day and night, their files related to job confirmations are lying before officials since years but due to unknown reasons no orders for making them permanent are being issued.
“We were hundred times assured by the concerned authorities that our demands will be met but their repeated promises and assurances proved hoax on ground,” he added.
The services of casual employees should be regularised to ensure the smooth functioning of the department and to ease their long-standing hardships, the protesting employees demanded.
They said that higher authorities are deliberately delaying their demands which includes issuance of regularization order, submission of pending files who have already completed five years and release of pending wages.
Tariq Ahmad, another employee said that daily wagers who get killed on duty don’t get any compensation due to which their families suffer.
In winters, there is more load on the employees and ensuring supply in winters especially in rural areas with weak infrastructure isn’t an easy task, the employees said.
They said that they aren’t receiving salaries and GP funds on time and it must be looked into as well.
They once again requested LG Manoj Sinha, CM Omar Abdullah and other higher ups to look into the matter on humanitarian ground and issue orders in this regard immediately.
