Monday Musing
[ Junroi Mamai ]
PHED&WS staffers have been seeking job regularisation for many years and recently, under the umbrella of the All Arunachal Pradesh Public Health Engineering & Water Supply Department Workers’Union, ended a three-day tool-down strike from 5 to 7 December, seeking fulfillment of their demands.
The workers’ union had resorted to the democratic action owing to the state government’s failure to respond to their earlier ultimatum issued on 24 June.
Their demands are genuine and need to be taken seriously by the state government. Job security, raise in salary and promotion are basic and non-negotiable rights of every employee. It is pathetic and outright injustice towards the hardworking employees to not have the security of their jobs despite serving a government department for over decades. However, there are numerous instances of contingency/casual staffers not getting regularised even after serving in a department for 30 years; some even retired awaiting regularisation. They have subsequently been denied various benefits also that come with job regularisation. A similar situation prevails in other departments as well, like the PWD and power, wherein workers having served for decades have still been denied appointment as work-charged workers (WC) or khalasi. It is disheartening that not much has changed in recent years, even though the successive governments promised otherwise.
In 2022, Chief Minister Pema Khandu assured the workers of the state government’s commitment to regularise their jobs. He stated that those workers who have been serving in the state for 15 years and above would have their jobs regularised. The chief minister had, at that time, informed that 15 percent vacancies in the posts of lower division clerks would be reserved for the contingency staffers and 25 percent of regular driver posts would be earmarked for contingency/casual drivers who are in service for at least 15 years. Another 50 percent was also to be reserved for multitasking casual staff workers.
In 2022, there were about 41,408 casual contingency staffers and ALCs working in the state, along with about 20,000 WC workers, all totaling to around 60,000, in the organised sector.
Regularising this number of workers can be difficult as the chief minister had pointed out in 2022, but it is not entirely impossible. The state government can start by firstly making the recruitment process transparent and ensuring strict adherence to the recruitment rules. The state government should also take stringent measures to prevent corrupt practices like illegal appointments in job recruitments. Apart from ambiguity in recruitment process and job guidelines, corruption has only exacerbated the situation here in our state.
In May this year, there emerged reports of 20 illegal appointments in the PHE&WS department in Changlang and Longding districts. Amid numerous protests, the state government had to cancel all 20 of the illegal appointments. The Special Investigation Cell has since been entrusted with the task of investigating the case.
Shockingly, all the illegal appointees were appointed to several WC posts on a regular basis in Changlang and Longding districts, and were then transferred to Yachuli, Pasighat, Sagalee, Naharlagun, Itanagar and Yupia divisions within March 2024. None of the illegal appointees were locals of the two districts or had ever worked in the PHED &WS department before. They were all fresh appointments.
At a time when the state’s hundreds of casual workers who have been serving in the department for decades are still awaiting their job regularisation, this dastardly act by corrupt authorities right under the state government’s nose has laid bare before us our present deplorable state of affairs. We cannot let this continue.
