WC and MR employees assc office inaugurated

GANGTOK, 22 Sept: All Sikkim Government Work Charged and Muster Roll Employees Association (ASGW&MREA) opened its office at Sichey at Hotel Vajra Kila near Hidden Forest, today. The central executive members and executive members of district level committee were present on the occasion.
Advisor of the association, Purna Gurung inaugurated the new office of the association. He urged the executive members to continue their efforts sincerely to ensure that all the employees under this category are regularized as per the announcement of the Chief Minister. He emphasized on working in a collective manner in the interest of all.
President, Ugen Lepcha in his address said that this office will help in addressing the grievances of all the workers. “We should develop a positive mindset to make the association strong”, he said. He appealed to all members to cooperate and assured that the association will work in a disciplined manner. “We have to go a long way and achieve a lot”, he added.
General secretary, Om Bikram Rizal also stressed on working in a collective manner so that a positive message goes to the government. Members of the district committee also addressed the function where they focused on unity among the members to get all the benefits from the government.

Claims continue in WC & MR employees assc, ne prez appoints CEC

GANGTOK, 20 Sept: All Sikkim Government Work Charged & Muster Roll Employees’ Association’s newly elected president, Ugen Lepcha nominated members of the central executive committee of the association today.
A press release informs that Ugen Lepcha was elected by members from all four districts during a meeting held on 15 September here in the capital.  Mr Lepcha encouraged the new executive members to work with better coordination for the welfare of the MR and WC employees. He further stated that the association will be following up with the announcement of the state government to regularize MR & WC employees who have been in service for more than 5 years.
The new committee has Ugen Lepcha as president, Sushila Subba as vice-president, Om Bikram Rizal as general secretary, Thinley C Gurung and Sumati Subba as treasurers, Pranita Rai and Ishwar Sharma as joint secretaries, and Ganga Bahadur Chettri and C Hangma Subba as publicity secretaries.

Charges continue being traded at association of WC&MR employees

GANGTOK, 16 Sept: Confrontations refuse to end at the All Sikkim Government Work Charged & Muster Roll Employees Association and within days of Ugen Lepcha emerging as a supposedly “consensus” new president of the association, following an embarrassing public confrontation between the two factions of the organization on Saturday, one of the group’s has challenged his appointment.
In a press release issued today, Padam Pandey, of the Pema Doma faction which claims to be the legally elected executive body of the association, admits that  the Saturday incident was ‘unfortunate’ and had defamed the entire Work-Charged and Muster Roll fraternity of the state.
He has extended his apologies to the State government and the Chief Minister for the unwarranted controversies. On behalf of his colleagues, he has also apologized to the senior officers of the Department of Personnel and Power and Energy who were invited in the said programme.
Through the press release, Mr. Pandey has urged all members of the association to come under one banner.

CM announces wage-hike for MR employees

CHAMLING MEETS MR, ADHOC, LDC AND OS LEVEL GOVT EMPLOYEES
GANGTOK, 14 Sept [IPR]: Chief Minister Pawan Chamling, on the second day of the series of meeting with government officers and employees of the state, addressed the Muster Roll, Adhoc and regular employees from LDC to Office Superintendent level, today at Manan Kendra, Gangtok.
While reading the demands placed by the representatives of various service associations the Chief Minister assured the employees that the government will constitute a committee to look into the demands and grievances of the employees.
“We will frame policies which will cover short term and long term benefits for the employees”, said the CM.
The Chief Minister also announced to raise the wages of Muster Roll employees to come into effect from April 2013. The employees of various service associations had submitted their representation to the Chief Minister at the beginning of the meeting.
The CM while talking about the various initiatives undertaken by the government for the betterment of the government employees said that the policy of appointment on compassionate ground was started by this government as a welfare measure. Further, this government has also initiated promotions for fourth grade employees of the state.
In order to give equal justice to all the government employees this government has also created various cadre services for employees in various sectors, he added. Besides increasing the duration of maternity leave for women employees the government has also initiated paternity leave for the fathers of the new born for fifteen days.
The government during its eighteen years of governance established two pay commissions which enhanced the salary of government employees to more than what the central government employees are drawing, the Chief Minister said.
Further assuring to fulfill the needs and aspirations of the government employees, the CM said that though it is impossible to fulfill the wants of every individual, the government will try its level best.
The Chief Minister also urged the government employees to work for the fellow citizens of the state with utmost dedication, sincerity and honesty. While talking about the official decorum and discipline to be maintained in government establishments, he urged the employees to set an example of disciplined administrative machinery by maintaining official decorum in the official establishment with dignity and self respect.

UD&HD begins work on regularization of MR employees

197 MR EMPLOYEES SELECTED, DEPTT IN PROCESS OF SCRUTINIZING DOCUMENTS
GANGTOK, 14 Aug: The Urban Development and Housing department (UD&HD) has notified a policy to initiate immediate examination [for regulation of services] of cases of employees working on Muster Roll Service and having completed 10 years and more of service in the department with immediate effect.
A total of 197 employees working on MR have been selected under this category and now the department is in the process of scrutinizing their documents to verify their eligibility.
This initiative, it  is informed is aimed at providing the deserving employees the much needed financial and other departmental benefits which should inspire them to work with more zeal and enthusiasm in the coming days.
The UD&HD, it may be recalled, had constituted a committee headed by the Additional Secretary as chairman and six other officers which include the Joint Secretary-I, Chief Accounts Officer, Divisional Engineer (Planning), Town Planner cum Sr.Architect as members and the Deputy Secretary-I as member secretary.
The committee is examining the length of service rendered by each MR employee along with their performance while also reviewing the actual requirement of staff in each section and is recommending further requirement, relocation of excess manpower to other departments.
 “We have already started the process and have already brought many of the employees under Work Charge. I want to specify that regularization of these employees will definitely take a long time since there is a process put in place by the state government. However, keeping in view the need to boost this manpower, they will be given all monetary benefits under work-charge which is almost equal to that of a regular employee,” stated the Additional Secretary, UD&HD, LB Chettri.
While informing that this process will now be an annual affair within the department, he said that under the 197 employees, 81 were safai karamcharis, 84 were labourers, 11 were masons, 5 were chowkidars, 7 were peons and 9 were LDCs.
The Additional Secretary further informed that however, the actual seniority of some of the supervisors who fell under this category has been identified as a constraining factor for all the employees to be cleared for WC.
“We want to confirm first if the case of the employee is genuine before they are made eligible which is why many of the files are still under scrutiny. These 197 are in the list but all of them are still not selected as eligible. Since this is a welfare initiative of the department and the state government we want to make sure that the deserving people are selected. Usually this is a category of employees which are often overlooked in such matters which is why we have initiated the same,” stated the Additional Secretary.

MR workers meet Agri Secy to discuss regularization options

GANGTOK, 06 June: Around 200 Muster Roll employees of Agriculture and Horticulture Departments, led by senior members of the All Sikkim Muster Roll and Workcharged Employees Association [ASMRWCEA], sat in a meeting with the Secretary, Vishal Chauhan, today and submitted a representation urging him to fill all the vacant posts in the Department with by senior MR employees within 100 the days programme as directed by the Chief Minister.
In their representation, the employees state, “Most of the MR employees have already rendered their services for more than 27 years. We request the regularization of senior MR workers in any appropriate vacant posts irrespective of their postings.”
They informed the Secretary that since 1984, not a single MR employee of either Department [Agriculture and Horticulture] has been regularized despite all the 700 MR employees possessing all the relevant documents.

MR employees at Agriculture and Horticulture Deptts gherao head office, protest tardy progress on regularisation

GANGTOK, 01 June: When around 200 Muster Roll employees of Agriculture and Horticulture Departments from all the four districts arrived in the office of the Principal Director, SK Sinha, at around 11 a.m. here at Krishi Bhawan today, a heated exchange broke out and the Director eventually left his office claiming that he had some work outside. The MR employees were upset with the tardy progress on the regularization of their services by their headquarter. The MR employees of the two Departments decided to gherao the headquarter to place their grievances to the senior officials face-to-face.
When they found that the Secretary was on tour with the Chief Minister, the employees decided to meet the Principal Director.
One of the demands, as placed to Mr. Sinha, was that, one-time relaxation be given to Class XII [Humanities] passed MR employees to fill 97 posts of VLWs lying vacant with the Department. According to the Departmental norms, the posts can be filled by the candidates having Class XII passed with Science stream.