Pay Rs 70 per day to JK casual labourers, engage them on need basis

Srinagar, Aug 25 (UNI) Jammu and Kashmir government today said it had authorised the Public Health Engineering (PHE), Irrigation and Flood Control departments to engage casual and seasonal labourers in the state at Rs 70 per day.

Replying to a calling attention by Mohammad Yousuf Tarigami in the Legislative Assembly today, Minister of State for PHE, Irrigation and Flood Control Dr Romesh Chander Sharma said the government had authorised these Departments to engage casual and seasonal labourers from time to time on minimum need basis on muster rolls for payment of wages.

He said the government had further ordered that skilled and trained labourers in identified trades shall be given preference in local areas for engagement of casual and seasonal labourers.

He said the labourers so engaged would be paid Rs 70 per day.

The Minister said that the Cabinet has also approved engagement of candidates trained in Industrial Training Institutions (ITI) in the trade of plumber and electrician as casual labourers by the PHE and Power Development Departments.

He said accordingly Chief Engineers of PHE, Kashmir and Jammu were authorised to engage only plumbers and electricians as casual labourers as and when required after verification of their certificates from Director Technical Education.

Mr Sharma said that an amount of Rs four crore way released by the Finance Department which provided to both the Chief Engineers of Kashmir and Jammu and rest of the required funds have been requisitioned from the Finance Department, which is under active consideration of the government.

In reply to another calling attention by Ali Mohammad Sagar, the Minister said that Srinagar city was being provided water supply from the existing five water supply plants having aggregated installed capacity of 57.55 MGD.

He said, however, the efficiency of plants constructed decades back had reduced by about 25 per cent, resulting in supplies to the extent of 43.74 MGD only.

He said to cope with the present deficit, one 10 MGD water treatment plant at Rangil was under construction under Master Plan Phase-II which was at its commissioning stage for which the laying of trunk mains by Jammu and Kashmir ERA was in progress. He said one more plant with a capacity of 2.25 MGD at Doodganga under Master Plan Phase-II was also in progress.

Intervening during the Calling Attention, the Minister for Health and Medical Education, Mr Mangat Ram Sharma assured the House that government would convene a high level meeting of PHE engineers to sort out the modalities for providing drinking water facilities to the people in Srinagar city on priority.

UNI