AG Vallabhan

Bhopal | Declaring a slew of benefits for Contract employees in the election year, CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan has announced that the process of contract employees will be abolished. Along with this, he said that everyone will be given the benefit of the National Pension Scheme. He declared that the salary will be calculated on the basis of 100 percent instead of 90 percent. Along with this, the benefit of health insurance schemes will be provided and compassionate appointments will also be given.

Addressing the contract employee’s conference at Motilal Nehru Stadium he also announced that Gratuity will be given on retirement. 50 percent reservation will be given for contract employees in the recruitment process to regular posts and all holidays will be given according to regular employees. Women will get maternity leave equally.

CM Chouhan said that it was a long pending demand of the contract employees for which they had gone on strike on several occasions demanding their rights. He assured that there will be no deduction of salary for the strike period, if deducted, they will be refunded and no legal action will be taken on strike related cases.

In the conference, the Chief Minister said that the contractual employees were no less than the regular employees in any way and the regular and contractual employees were working shoulder to shoulder.

There are about 2.5 lakh contract employees in the state and all of them have benefited from this announcement. These announcements are seen as crucial in view of the assembly elections this year.

For a long time there was a lot of resentment among the contractual employees of the state towards the government. But now with these announcements, CM Shivraj has pacified them to a great extent and has also silenced the political opponents.

Madhya Pradesh State Employees Federation (MPSEF), an umbrella organisation of 55 government employees’ federations/unions/associations in the State was demanding the clearing of backlog promotions, regularisation of various categories of contractual and daily wager employees, ending the outsourcing system, pay parity and increasing honorariums of ASHA workers.

However, the issue of regularisation of their employment is still at arm’s length which the employees feel will be fulfilled within a reasonable period of time.