GULBARGA: Former Labour Minister and Janata Dal (Secular) leader S.K. Kanta on Wednesday demanded that the State Government end the practice of contract labour in government and quasi-government departments for the work, which is of permanent nature.

Mr. Kanta, who led a successful agitation against the retrenchment of 477 contract labourers of the Gulbarga City Corporation and forced the authorities to reinstate them with the same salary as they were drawing earlier, told presspersons that contract system gave room for exploitation of workers.

He said that the Department of Personnel and Administrative Reforms had issued a circular that the government departments and the urban civic bodies need not fill up the vacant posts of pourakarmikas for involving them in cleaning operations and asked them to take up the cleaning operation work through contract labour.

Mr Kanta said that the Contract Labour Abolition and Regulation Act stated that even the labourers involved in the work which is not of regular nature should be given leave, crèche facilities for the children of the women labourers at the workspot, canteen facilities and other benefits. None of them had been extended to the contract labourers so far.

He said that a case was been filed in the court of Deputy Labour Commissioner here few years ago demanding all the facilities due to contract labourers working in the city corporation. Although the labour Acts clearly state that the employer has no right to change the service conditions of the contract labourers when a case filed by him is pending in the labour court or any other court, the Gulbarga City Corporation had retrenched 477 daily wage workers involved in the cleaning work of the city a week ago.

Protesting against the action of the civic body, he said, an indefinite dharna was launched in front of the administrative office of the city corporation. He thanked Deputy Commissioner Pankajkumar Pandey, who withdrew the retrenchment order issued by the Commissioner of the City Corporation and ordered taking back all the retrenched employees. Mr Kanta alleged that the City Corporation Commissioner had issued contract awards to four persons and asked them to recruit new labourers for the cleaning work.

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