Bijbehara, Dec 18 (KNO): The casual labourers of wildlife division are on a sit-in protest in Bijbehara for the last six days demanding release of pending wages and issues to be redressed.
Labourers while talking with the news agency—Kashmir News Observer (KNO) said that the department had received some amount of their wages but the authorities have distributed them unevenly.
“Some received Rs 3600, some received just Rs 900 and there are some who haven't received a single penny when all of them were working twenty-four-seven,” labourers said.
Labourers said that in March this year they all received Rs 6750 but since then they haven't received any salary since then.
“Now department has received our salary after nine months but it has been distributed unevenly,” they said.
The casual labourers said that in any man animal conflict only casual labourers were performing duties to control any disturbance in the area, “but unfortunately we are not getting salary for months together.”
“Casual labourers working in offices are getting more salary while people who are in the field for day and night are being ignored,” they said. “Department has 600 permanent employees and most of them are working in offices and on the ground only casual labourers are working. Our genuine demands are always being ignored.”
“If department will continue to treat us the same way, how will we survive on a meagre salary of a few hundred which we often get after several months,” they said.
Labourers said before two years an audit committee was constituted who had already cleared names of around 600 labours but nothing had been done on ground.
Labourers demanded that the authorities must provide a salary Rs 6750 per month which other casual labourers are getting continuously for 12 months.
“We request higher ups to look into the matter at an earliest and release our pending wages. Till our genuine demands won't be met, we won't call off the protest,” they said—(KNO)