haryana-contractual-employees-bill-passed

The Haryana Assembly passed the Haryana Contractual Employees (Security of Service) Bill on November 19. 

The bill will permit contractual employees (all types) and those who have been given employment through Haryana Kaushal Rozgar Nigam to work till retirement age. 

The employees having remuneration of Rs 50,000 are eligible under the bill. For those above the said amount will be considered under separate legislation. 

The last day of winter session also witnessed an exchange of remarks between CM Nayab Singh Saini and Congress over norms of reservations being violated in the bill. 

Former CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda said, “HKRNL has no transparency. People are recruited on telephone calls. It has to be seen what kind of jobs are provided and how much they are paid. A recent report by the International Labour Organisation says 54.7% of educated youth of Haryana have migrated to other states for jobs.”

CM Nayab Singh Saini, added, while “HKRNL came in 2022 and ended the harassment of contractual employees by their ‘thekedaar’. 

“In Congress’ time, employees used to get a salary of Rs 2,000-Rs 3,000 as contractors used to take a cut…We are correcting their wrong policies. We had promised 1.20 lakh employees of HKRNL that their services would be regularised,"Saini added. 

He further added, “It was claimed (by the Opposition) that there was no reservation under HKRNL. I would like to inform you that 37,404 such employees were SCs (28%), 41,376 were from Backward Classes (32%) and 53,993 from General Category.” 

The section 9 of the Deployment of Contractual Persons Policy, 2022, confirms that horizontal and vertical reservation would be followed for deployment by HKRNL. 

The section was read out by Saini in his response to the party. 

The CM also clarified the scoring parameters set for deciding the people eligible under the bill. 

The bill would allow those whose family income is up to Rs 1.8 lakh would get 40 points. And, employment for 2 lakh permanent jobs would be held separately. 

Congress MLA from Nuh, Aftab Ahmed suggested sending the Bill to the Select Committee of the House to overturn the injustices faced by the newly joined contractual employees. 

Rohtak MLA BB Batra said, “We may end up doing injustice with these contractual employees. I don’t think this Bill would stand judicial scrutiny as the reservation policy has not been followed.”