PATIALA: The temporary mid-day meal workers of Punjab education department have announced to stop work in officers from December 4 and to start gherao the DGSE office in Mohali on December 5.
A spokesman of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan Mid-Day Meal Office Employees Union said that anger against the crooked moves of the Education Department and the Finance Department and the Bhagwant Mann government's non-implementation of the demands of the temporary employees has reached its peak. They have threatened to surround the DGSE office and march towards the Chandigarh Chief Minister's residence or the Aam Aadmi Party headquarters.
The Education Department and the Finance Department have been adopting a policy of delaying the regular salary anomaly of office workers and the salary increase of mid-day meal employees for the last one year, but as soon as they received the information of giving a gaffe to some of their favorites.
The leaders said that despite the Chief Minister accepting the demands on April 21, 2022 and the Cabinet Sub-Committee on March 14, 2024, the department did not implement the demands. In the meeting of March 14, as per the orders of the Finance Minister, the organization had also given an affidavit to the DGSE.
On November 28, the employees started a full-fledged dharna while protesting. During the protest, the Mohali administration had organized a meeting with the Cabinet Minister and Party President Aman Arora at the party's office in Sector 39, during which the Cabinet Minister had spoken to Secretary School Education Kamal Kishore Yadav and Education Minister Harjot Bains and ordered them to resolve the issues of the employees. On December 2, a meeting was scheduled with the Secretary School Education, but the Secretary School Education refused to hold the meeting.
Issuing a press statement in this regard, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan Mid-Day Meal Office Employees Union leader Hardev Singh said that the state bureaucracy knows the government ministers and despite the issue being resolved in the Cabinet Sub-Committee meeting on March 14, 2024, the employees are still being kept in a maze of files.
The leaders said that after the Chief Minister's decision, the Cabinet Sub-Committee took decisions to regularize the irregular employees and remove the salary deduction and gave orders to the officials 3 times, but the state bureaucracy did not take any action on the issues of the employees.
During the meeting held on November 6, Finance Minister Harpal Cheema ordered the officials to issue written orders and the government issued written orders on November 7 to regularize the office employees on the lines of 8886 teachers during the year 2018. The leaders said that now the employees will return only after getting their demands accepted. If any untoward incident happens during the protest, then the Punjab government and the Education Department will be fully responsible for it.