Jammu, Mar 11 (KNO): Senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and former minister in the NC-Congress coalition, Sham Lal Sharma on Tuesday accused the National Conference (NC) of deliberately keeping the regularisation of daily wagers in Jammu and Kashmir in limbo. He also claimed that the present dispensation is lying about not having the data on the number of daily-rated workers.
Talking to the news agency—Kashmir News Observer (KNO) Correspondent, Sharma stated that when the NC-Congress was in power back in 2014, the data on daily wagers was compiled and finalised.
Sharma, who served as a cabinet minister and was a senior Congress leader during the NC-Congress coalition from 2009 to 2014, said that the data is still available with the government. He accused the NC-led dispensation of deliberately derailing the process and passing the buck.
“Back in 2013-14, it was the National Conference that played the spoilsport in the regularisation of daily wagers in Jammu and Kashmir. The then Finance Minister was the Chairman of the Cabinet Sub-Committee, which identified data for 61,000 daily wagers from 47 departments. I had pursued that issue tooth and nail,” Sharma said.
He added that the regularisation process was put in cold storage by the National Conference because the number of daily wagers to be regularised was higher in the Jammu division compared to the Kashmir division.
“Instead, they went ahead with enhancing the retirement age of government employees from 58 to 60. This was done to support a few bureaucrats and trade union leaders who later fought elections on an NC ticket,” Sharma alleged.
“When will they regularise them if not now? The fact is that the National Conference is exposing daily-rated workers to extreme hardships. Their regularisation would require an estimated 122 crore rupees, but the proposal was kept in limbo for obvious reasons,” he added—(KNO)