State Labor Welfare Board has illegally stopped financial assistance to MNREGA workers: Bhupendra

The 44th meeting of the Himachal Pradesh State Labor Welfare Board was held in his office in Shimla under the chairmanship of Chief Minister and new Chairman of the Labor Welfare Board, Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu. Although this meeting was scheduled on 29 February, but due to the crisis prevailing in the state government, it was postponed. It could not take place and this meeting was held in haste only as a formality and decisions could not be taken on the pending issues. Board member and Joint Trade Union Struggle Committee convener Bhupendra Singh, INTUC’s Hema Tanwar, BMS’s Pradeep Kumar, AITUC’s Jagdish Bhardwaj and TUCC’s Ravindra Kumar Ravi said that they were hopeful that in this meeting the Board had been stuck for the last one and a half years. It was expected that a decision would be taken regarding the functioning and release of assistance, but the Chief Minister came to the meeting only for ten minutes and left after speaking about the implementation of the two announcements made in the government’s budget in the board, on which the members of all the labor organizations agreed. has expressed its objection and has given an ultimatum to the Secretary of the Board to release the withheld amount of financial assistance within ten days, otherwise after that the unions will intensify the already ongoing struggle. Convenor Bhupendra Singh said that during the tenure of the present Congress government, all the work of the board has been almost stopped for the last 14 months, against which the labor unions have jointly taken to the streets and protested against the government and the board several times and the Chief Minister Have also been contacted but the work has not been resumed. Earlier the Labor Minister was the Chairman of this Board but now the Chief Minister himself has taken charge of it and has become the Chairman of the Board from 2nd February and even in the meeting chaired by him, the illegally withheld assistance to MNREGA workers was not restored. Was able to. Not only this, the notification issued on December 12, 2022 regarding MNREGA workers becoming members in the board and stopping their renewal and benefits was also issued by the same government, which is a violation of the law made in the year 1996. Regarding this, the Law Department has also declared the ban imposed on MNREGA workers from becoming board members last October as legally wrong. But even after that the board is not implementing it and has stopped financial assistance and registration and renewal of workers. He said that out of total four and a half lakh laborers registered in the board, 3 lakh are laborers working in MNREGA, out of which assistance worth Rs 20 crore of more than 1 lakh 15 thousand laborers has been illegally withheld by the board for the last one and a half years. . Apart from this, all the unions are also opposing the decision to give certificates regarding payment of cess to the workers and depriving the labor unions of the right to issue employment letters. After the meeting, the officials and board members of the five unions met and decided to postpone for 10 days the campaign and agitation to be launched at the Panchayat level by the Joint Trade Union Struggle Committee formed against the board and the government on March 3 and during this also If the Chief Minister does not take a decision then the struggle will be intensified.