Regularisation move deferred as Punjab ministers object to criteria

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, September 17

After objections raised by several ministers to the criteria of having completed 10 years of service on contract/ad hoc basis for staff regularisation, the Punjab Cabinet today deferred nod to the amended draft of “The Punjab Protection and Regularisation of Contractual Employees Bill 2020” till the next meeting.

Other decisions

• Time filing objections prepared under the SVAMITVA scheme reduced from 90 to 45 days
• Reimbursement of state GST share on langar items allowed
• Subsistence allowance of terrorists/riot-hit families hiked from Rs5,000 to Rs6,000 per month and ration money for Kashmiri migrants Rs2,000 to Rs2,500 per month per family
• Nod to restructuring of tourism and food supplies department

Free cover for 15L left-out families

The CM announced free insurance cover for 15 lakh families, which were earlier not included under the Ayushman Bharat-Sarbat Sehat Bima Yojana. Under this, the Health Dept had proposed bringing these families into govt schemes cover on a co-sharing basis, which would have required the beneficiaries to pay for part of the expense.

Nod to custom milling policy

The Cabinet approved the Punjab Custom Milling Policy for kharif 2021-22 for conversion of paddy procured by state procurement agencies (Pungrain, Markfed, Punsup and PSWC) into custom milled rice and its delivery into the central pool. The Kharif Marketing Season 2021-22 will start from Oct 1 and the operations will be completed by Dec 15.

Ministers Brahm Mohindra, Razia Sultana, Tript Bajwa, Balbir Sidhu besides others sought the minimum period criteria to be reduced from 10 years to three or five years. After listening the ministers, CM Capt Amarinder Singh directed the Cabinet sub-committee to put up the draft of legislation with the changes after getting it vetted from the Legal Remembrancer.

With 10-year criteria, nearly 37,000 employees could be regularised. By reducing it to three to five years, more employees could be adjusted.

As per the draft tabled at the Cabinet meeting, the employees who have completed 10 years of services on contractual/ad hoc basis in various government departments, boards and corporations were eligible for regularisation, under the suggestions of a Cabinet sub-committee comprising Brahm Mohindra, Finance Minister Manpreet Badal, Rural Development Minister Tript Rajinder Bajwa and Technical Education Minister Charanjit Singh Channi.

It is estimated there are over 32,100 contractual staff in various government departments and 34,000 such employees in state-owned boards and corporations. Since regularisation of services is being proposed only against sanctioned posts, only over 50% of these contract employees stand to benefit.