Gangtok: The Sikkim Government is carrying out large-scale regularisation of temporary employees and issuing job orders to the unemployed in the State. However, the Citizen Action Party President Bharat Basnet and Bharatiya Janata Party legislator Dilli Ram Thapa have raised concerns over the large-scale termination of temporary employees.
BJP legislator and party president Dilli Ram Thapa raised the concern while talking to EastMojo outside the Assembly premises. He shared, “I have received many complaints from employees terminated from their temporary government jobs recently. They are mostly from the lower economic strata, whose livelihood depends on that job. This is a democracy where people are entitled to have their own opinion, they can choose a party that they side with. It is not declared that only the ruling party is right, only they must be supported. If that was the case only the party of first chief minister LD Kazi would be the one to exist.”
Thapa further stated, “To terminate an employee if he has a different opinion and doesn’t align with the working of the government, is very wrong. Those terminated employees may be making a mere Rs. 9000 per month, some have loans to pay, and others will have to pay school fees for their children. They all have dreams, such dreams are being quashed when the government terminates them for government jobs. You (the government) have no right to terminate them from their jobs”.
Similarly, Citizen Action Party Sikkim President Bharat Basnet also highlighted the large-scale termination of One Family One Job holders and other temporary employees recently by the State Government, through a press conference on Thursday.
CAP reminded Chief Minister Prem Singh Golay of stealing someone’s livelihood. CAP President stated, “Those offered termination letter must tell the CM back that his services are no longer required. Hundreds of ‘One Family One Job’ employees were terminated with one sentence in the termination order which is inhuman. There seems to be no valid reason apart from their political affiliation. OFOJ employees are hanging precariously by the thread. If someway they are associated with opposition political parties, they are being terminated. This is an attack on the fundamental right of the person.”
On the regularisation policy of the SKM government, BJP legislator Thapa welcomed the initiative claiming it’s a welcome step. “But the pay scale has to be good, they get paid very less under their temporary contracts. We are concerned about where would the salaries be given, right now even in the Assembly session there was no mention in the budget about how the salaries for this workforce will be paid. It is scary to not know where the salaries would be paid from.”
Thapa lamented that the new recruitment should happen with proper entrance exams.
Similarly, CAP President Basnet shed light upon Sikkim government service conduct rules, stating, “There is no mention of finances, the regularisation or recruitment were not discussed in the Assembly. We are not against recruitment, but to gather the people and luring them of regularisation and appointment orders is political terrorism. 15,000 job distribution in Rangpo is mere drama. There was no need to gather people, concerned departments could simply hire them.”
Bharat Basnet also highlighted the High Court of Sikkim’s order against such recruitment, stating, “When even the high court of Sikkim has ordered against such recruitment orders taking the context of the case against OFOJ employees, SKM government is going against the court orders and carrying out more recruitment. How can the Chief Minister give a speech where he calls for a youth promising job recruitment as an inspector if he were to come as an SKM party worker for two months? There is no value for education, does that mean students should stop going to schools?”
Also Read: Scary future of Himalayan region: 90% region could face drought