'Golden handshake' panacea for Arunachal labourers: CM

Itanagar, Mar 20 (UNI) 'Golden Handshake' option could be the panacea for solving the labourers' problem, whose wages take away over Rs 86 crore of scarce resources of Arunachal Pradesh annually, said Chief Minister Gegong Apang today.

Mr Apang was responding to Independent MLA R.K.Khrimey's concern, who highlighted the problem of contingent and casual labourers with over 20 years service and sought a policy to redress their grievances.

Mr Apang said that the genesis of the problem was in the NFFA (North East Frontier Agency) days when central organisations have engaged labourers.

''Neither the labourers could be thrown out at the fag end of their career nor their services could be regularized,'' the chief minister said and advocated 'Golden Handshake' policy as a middle path to get rid of unproductive labours.

In directive to the senior officers to make best use of the force after pruning the unproductive ones, Mr Apang suggested to avoid fresh recruitment and engage unemployed youths for various departmental works like maintenance and painting.

Later describing the labour problem in the state as 'alarming', while replying during a special mention made by Lokam Tassar, PWD Minister Nabam Tuki informed that the department spends Rs 63.5 crore annually on labour wages while the shortfall stands at Rs 28 crore.

Reffering to the decision of a high powered committee constituted as per the directive of High Court to regularize appointment and promotion of work charged staff, Mr Tuki said that committee recommended drastic reduction of labour strength upto 50 per cent annually.

While the number of unskilled labourers were reduced to 3,717 in 2006 from 4,999 in 2001, the strength of labourers was decreased to 12,452 from 12,826 during the period.

UNI