Employees sign but refuse to work Group A officers report for duty

Darjeeling, Nov. 6: Work came to a standstill in all DGHC offices across the hills on the first day of the Janmukti Astai Karmchari Sangtan (JAKS)’s pen-down strike, demanding that contractual employees be made permanent.

The DGHC has nearly 7,000 contractual workers on its rolls. The only permanent staff are the executive officers in the Group A category.

This morning, the contractual workers showed up at their respective offices around 10am and signed the attendance sheet. They stayed in the offices till 4pm, the scheduled time for closure.

Machendra Subba, the president of JAKS, an affiliate of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha, claimed that work came to a standstill at the education department too. “We have exempted only schools and their offices. Hospitals and the public health engineering department have also been exempted in the first phase of the agitation,” Subba said.

Most of the teachers working in the 900 odd primary and secondary schools, also are on contract. The School Service Commission, which recruits teachers to secondary schools, has not been functional in the hills since its inception in 1998.

Nearly all executive officers — most of them deputy magistrates who took charge after the earlier officers in charge of the departments resigned — reported for duty. Many said it was difficult to work without the help of the contractual employees.

The administrator of the DGHC, B.L. Meena, and district magistrate Surendra Gupta, who is also the principal secretary of the council, were out of town today.

“I have asked a report from the district magistrate about the state of affairs in the hill offices. Once he submits it, I will forward the report to the state government,” said Meena.

The contractual workers have been with the DGHC for the past 20 years. The salaries of most of them range from Rs 2,000 to Rs 5,000.

When GNLF chief Subash Ghisingh was the chairman of the council, the salaries of these employees had been slashed.

Meena had earlier promised that the salaries of the contractual workers would be hiked by Rs 1,000. From July this year, the six-month contract was done away with. The council administrator had said workers would not be bound by a six-month contract and would be allowed to work till their jobs were regularised.

“A workers’ delegation recently met my officers and said they did not want the hike. They want regularisation. The hill affairs department, which is seeing into the matter, had certain queries, the clarifications of which were sent to Calcutta on Monday. A final decision will be taken by the department,” said Meena.