Thousands of daily wagers across the province, who the Punjab government has promised to regularise, are becoming a true picture of misery and hopelessness after rumours went amok that the government had decided to abort the plan.
Tensions run high at the time when almost all departments of Punjab government have submitted relevant data for the daily wagers to the committee headed by Khawaja Asif, close aid to Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz President Nawaz Sharif and daily wagers have crossed their fingers, hoping for good news.
Sources in CM Secretariat laid bare the facts that move to regularise the daily wagers planned three months back was the ploy to win the hearts of people who had started defecting to Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf departing from PML-N. Punjab government has decided to give the impression that let bygones be bygones, official in CM secretariat told Pakistan Today.
He said another hiccup in the materialisation of the plan was its financial viability. “If daily wagers were regularised, it would put heavy burden on the already cash-strapped provincial kitty. Salaries and other perks and privilege were unimaginable and financial advisors of the Punjab government had termed the move as a recipe of disaster,” he spilled the beans.
On a query, PML-N leaders lambasted Khawaja Asif for spotting the image of Sharifs saying Khawaja Asif must have consulted the issue with PML-N secretary finance and senior leader Sardar Ayaz Saddiq who recently played vital role in regularising more than 520 employees of the Railways.
When asked, Sardar Ayaz Saddiq said Asif had not discussed the matter with him. However, a PML-N MPA, asking not be named, said the move was still alive and government had been doing its best to make things happen. He claimed that MNA Hamza Shahbaz was likely to make some announcement for the regularisation of the daily wagers on March 23.
Detail revealed that Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif had constituted a committee, headed by Asif, to give regular status to daily wagers. Committee comprising additional chief secretary, the services and regulation secretaries collected data of daily wagers working in the provincial government departments and autonomous institutions.
To materialise the move, the Regulation Wing of Services and General Administration (S&GAD) issued a circular to all provincial departments, districts, autonomous institutions and heads of projects to hand in the data of daily wagers of their departments concerned.
The committee was also tasked to formulate a policy for regularisation and submit a detailed report to the chief minister for formal approval. Initially, a formula was set that all the daily wagers, except those who were discharging their duties against projects’ posts, would be regularised. The committee had set tough criteria for regularisation. One of the criteria was that only those employees who had completed four years and seven months (1700 working days) in service would be confirmed and would be reappointed only in a financially sound organisation.
Although for daily wager there is no age limit, the new criteria has age limit for daily wager at 25 years on the day of appointment which leaves very few to qualify for regular posts as majority of them had crossed the age limit. On the issue, PML-N leader Sardar Ayaz Saddiq opposed the criteria and said those who had the skills even after one year should be regularised. It is pertinent to mention that provincial government has already regularised more than 150,000 contractual employees from BS-1 to BS-15 in October 2009. These contractual employees were recruited through a procedure.
