Punjab to regularise services of 35,000 govt employees

Chandigarh, March 22 (IANS) Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann on Tuesday announced the services of 35,000 group 'C' and 'D' contractual and outsourcing employees in government departments would be regularised.

Mann said he has directed Chief Secretary Anirudh Tewari to prepare the draft of a Bill for regularising the services of the employees before the next session of the Assembly.

"We will approve the draft legislation in the assembly and regularise the employees engaged through contract and outsourcing," he said in a video message, saying this will be the government's "historic decision".

Mann said contractual and outsourcing employees have been holding protests for a long time for the job regularisation. "There was no chowk (intersection) or water tank where they were not holding protest. I do not want lathicharge or turbans or chunnis of protesting staff to fall off," he said.

He said schools do not have teachers, while eligible teachers are protesting by climbing atop water tanks right outside the institutions for jobs. "No job creation is needed for this. We will do that too, but we have to first fill the existing jobs," he added.

Meanwhile, training guns at the Congress party on the third day of the first session of the Vidhan Sabha, Mann declared holiday on March 23, the martyrdom day of Shaheed-e-Azam Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev, as a tribute to the great martyrs.

While replying to the issue raised by Congress' Gidderbaha MLA Amarinder Singh Raja Warring demanding to keep all the schools and colleges open on the martyrdom day instead of declaring a holiday, Mann said the holiday has been declared as a befitting tribute to these legendary martyrs.

Clarifying the rationale behind declaring a state-level holiday on this day, he said that earlier this holiday was only declared locally within Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar district to facilitate the people from nearby areas to pay tributes at the martyr's memorial in his ancestral village Khatkar Kalan.

"Now, our government has decided to declare a gazetted holiday on this day across the state so as to enable the maximum number of people from across the state to pay their glowing tributes to the great martyrs, including students and teachers at both Khatkar Kalan and Hussainiwala, as these martyrs belong to the entire nation and thus can't be restricted to one place," he said.

Quipping at the spur of moment, Leader of House Mann asked Warring to tell the birthday of Bhagat Singh which he failed to reply.

Astonished over this, Mann asked Warring to note down that the birthday of great martyr Bhagat Singh falls on September 28.

Mann, however, said that his government has already planned to commemorate this day on a mega scale by organising a series of seminars, symposiums, declamation contests and several other events in schools, colleges besides other educational institutions across the state to apprise the youngsters with the ideology and philosophy of youth's icon.