In limbo regularized employees petition CS to lift ‘abeyance’ order

GANGTOK, 17 June: Muster Roll and Work Charged employees whose services were notified for regularization before the Assembly elections, a process which was put in “abeyance” owing to the announcement of election and Model Code of Conduct, and who continue to wait for the said circular to be lifted, find themselves in a complex limbo. Several of them were issued regularization orders before the process was put on hold, but in the resulting confusion, their status and duties remain undefined, a confusion which has resulted in them not having received their salaries for the past three months [since they were regularised] and not being told how to perform their duties and in what capacities.

In this regard, over 200 MR and WC employees who had been notified for regularization called on the Chief Secretary today to request the completion of the regularization process and also for disbursement of their pending salaries. A memorandum was also put up to the Chief Secretary seeking withdrawal of the notification by which the Department of Personnel had kept the regularization process in abeyance. They are also seeking effective implementation of the notification issued on 22 February this year by which they had been declared regularized.

“We have not been paid our salaries for the past 3 months as a result of the process being kept in abeyance. Moreover, those regularized do not know what to do in their offices or what post they now hold. Almost all had been regularized and had received their office orders and had started their new duties as regularized employees,” stated members of the MR/WC employees association [who had been regularized] while speaking to NOW! today.

5,624 temporary employees, MR and WC, had been notified for regularization in the various departments before the announcement of the elections earlier this year.

“It is strange that after having issued their orders for regularization the government suddenly wants to put the order on hold,” the members said. Furthermore, on having met with the Secretary, Department of Personnel, the employees said that they could not receive any clear reasons on why the process has been put on hold.

“Nobody seems to know why the process has been put in abeyance,” stated the members.

It is informed that the CS has sought a week’s time to sort out the matter.

The memorandum to the CS states that the regularization process of the temporary employees is already in an advanced stage wherein most have already initiated Memorandums of Understanding and further, that most of them have already been relieved from their present dispensations [as temporary employees] across the state. The employees have preferred that the government continue with the process of regularization of the employees taking into considerations the administrative complications arising out of the order for abeyance and in the interest of the “poor working class society of Sikkim”.

The temporary employees visiting the CS today comprised both categories of regularized employees- those with 15 years and above of service and those with 10 years and above of service. In the first category 4,002 employees had been notified for regularization and in the second, 1,622.