Srinagar: The Jammu and Kashmir National Conference on Tuesday denounced the disengagement of 918 ICDS workers and termed the “diktat as dictatorial”.
Taking strong exception to the order of disengaging more than 900 Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) workers with a stroke of pen and without giving a thought to the after-effects of the decision on the hundreds of families, who draw their sustenance from the meager salaries, Party’s Spokesperson Imran Nabi Dar said that instead of delivering on the much-touted promise of creating more job avenues in JK, the incumbent JK government is unceremoniously showing door to thousands of employee engaged in various government department on one pretext or another.
“The diktat, he maintained, “doesn’t resonate with the GOI policy of empowering the women as the ICDS workers comprise of women workers.”
“The hapless ICDS workers are already going without wages for almost three months despite rendering services effectively as frontline workers in combating the Covid-19 spread since the advent of Covid sprawl in JK. Instead of acknowledging their efforts, the Govt is showing them door. The measures smacks of sheer unfairness and tyranny. The fall-out of the step will have a major impact on the families associated with such workers,” he said.
Imran said the unemployment crisis conflates together a number of economic and social issues in absence of a vital private sector, poor entrepreneurship development policies and lackluster recruitment in government sector in JK.
“The situation, it is needless to say has further been aggravated by the disengagement spree of employees by the government. Previously nearly 4500 SDHs engineers were disengaged, and now more than 900 workers have been weaned off from their livelihoods,” he added.
While the plight of nearly 60,000 contractual, need-based and daily wager employees remaining unchanged, Imran added that the measure will further put into distress the workforce in the region and affect the functioning of Govt department.
Demanding the immediate re-engagement of the ICDS workers, he impressed upon the J&K Government to use the services of such workers in order to ensure that they are not deprived off their humble livelihood.
