New Delhi: A Parliamentary Committee has
asked the Defence Ministry to consider regularizing contract
workers of Nasik division of Hindustan Aeronautics Limited on
a priority and address their employment-related issues
immediately as their work was of "perennial" nature.
The Action Taken Report (ATR) of the Committee on
Petitions, which considered the HAL`s contract workers` plea,
said they fulfilled eligibility criteria for posts in the
unskilled sector and, so, the Ministry should have no
objection in regularizing them.
It said their demand was yet to be resolved as the
Central Government Industrial Tribunal-cum-Labour Court at
Mumbai had not adjudicated on the issue.
Noting that the workers were poor and belonged to weaker
sections of society, the committee said though it recommended
to the Ministry to make sincere efforts for an early decision
to resolve the issue expeditiously within a time frame, the
fact remained that the workers continued to suffer hardship
and mental agony.
The committee said it had also recommended that the
workers, being quite experienced, should be given opportunity
and priority for their absorption and regularisation against
regular posts in HAL subject to their suitability for the jobs
and fulfilling the necessary requirements.
The casual workers had in their petition stated that they
were working in the Nasik division for the last 20 to 25
years, but they were not being regularised, granted benefits
and paid higher wages on par with their counterparts in the
Hyderabad division of HAL.
The ATR said the committee was not convinced with the
Ministry`s submission that it would not be appropriate to
follow the procedure adopted in HAL`s Hyderabad division two
decades ago.
PTI
