Thousands of Government College teachers held a protest in 68 government colleges of the state and wore black badges to oppose the Himachal Pradesh Recruitment and Conditions of Service Bill 2024 being enacted by the state government, on Friday.
State President of Himachal Government College Teachers’ Association (HGCTA) Dr Banita Salkani said, “Government college teachers throughout the state staged a protest and wore black badges against the bill which is unconstitutional and contemptuous in its nature, being anti-employees and aims to discredit the services rendered by the employees on contract basis despite recruited by HP Public Service Commission of Himachal Pradesh.”
She said, “Several judgments by the Supreme Court of India and HP High Court have been passed in favour of contract employees to count the period of contact service for all types of benefits as the employees have discharged similar duties equivalent to regular employees and have directed the state government to count contract period for the benefit of increments, promotions and other consequential benefits.”
“However the state government has been reluctant to implement these judgments in letter and spirit and has now enacted a bill to deprive the contract employees from getting the benefits”, she adds.
The HGCTA executive committee has expressed its surprise over enactment of the bill since the state government has been promising to do away with the contact policy and pay all benefits to contract employees from the date of their joining.
“The HGCTA has urged the state government to immediately withdraw the bill changing service conditions of state government employees, failing which the Association will approach the Court and will not shirk from launching an agitation,” Saklani said.
