Shillong, Sept 6: The Meghalaya Progressive Worker Union (MePWU) has demanded from the state government to set a deadline for coming up with a policy to regularize the contractual employees of the Meghalaya Electricity Corporation Limited (MeECL).
The MePWU on Tuesday started with their second phase of protest with a sit-in demonstration, which will continue till September 16, to demand for regularization and the release of pending arrear from October 2018 till February 2019.
Speaking to media persons, president of MePWU Mantiphrang Lyngdoh Kiri said the union cannot accept the claims of deputy chief minister Prestone Tynsong that the department is in financial crisis as in the past the department had implemented various projects worth crores of rupees.
Kiri claimed that the regularization of contractual employees is not a matter of financial availability but it all depends upon the will of the department, especially with the board of directors of MeECL.
“We will not call off our agitation and we demand from the department to set a deadline to come up with a policy on regularization of contractual employees as most of us are in the services for more than 20 years,” he said.
He said the union had received a letter from the department urging them to call off their on-going agitation citing impact on the services with regard to power supply. He, however, termed the reasons in the letter as mere excuses to prevent them from protesting and a delay tactics.
However, he added that the MePWU accepts the assurance of the Dy CM and the management when it comes to the pending arrears but they will not call off the on-going agitation if the state government fails to call them for talks.
“When it comes to the pending arrears, we were informed that it is under examination, hence, we have omitted from our charter of demands but when it comes to regularization, we want the concerned department to call us for talks to set up a deadline to come up with a policy for regularization of all contractual employees of MeECL,” Kiri maintained.
