MAPUSA
Urban Development Minister Vishwajit Rane assured the Goa Legislative Assembly that all daily-wage/contract workers who have completed minimum five years in various civic bodies will be given a temporary status and the file would be moved by Monday.
Rane also said that regularisation of contractual and temporary workers is under consideration of the government but is held back because of a Supreme Court order on fixing temporary/contractual employees.
“I will move a proposal so that all those workers who have been employed in civic bodies for at least five years are given temporary status. I will discuss it with the CM and move the file by Monday,” Rane said, when a discussion on the status of the daily-wage workers was raised by Margao MLA Digambar Kamat.
He said as per the SC order regularisation is to be made only on vacant posts as one time measure.
“The councils are therefore required to fill this post on available vacancies and in case the council justifies their workload then it may submit their proposal for posts creation. The government will assess this requirement for such posts creation,” he said.
He further said that some of the councils have engaged contractual employees without approval of the government.
Kamat said daily-wage and contract workers have been employed in several municipalities and some of them have been stuck at the spot for more than a decade with no job security.
“In the past there were assurances made on the floor of the House that all such workers who have completed seven years would be confirmed. But now it seems the government is taking a different stand,” he said.
He said the department of urban development has information of such workers from all municipalities but somehow has been dragging its feet to provide the workers their due.
Navelim MLA Ulhas Tuenkar said that several people from his constituency were working at the Sonsodo garbage site for the last five to seven years.
“They have been working in a very miserable condition for so many years. The government needs to consider their case sympathetically and confirm their services,” Tuenkar said.
