Delhi Chief Minister Atishi on Sunday said her government will send within a week a proposal to Lieutenant-Governor V.K. Saxena for the permanent engagement of around 10,000 civil defence volunteers reinstated last month.
She also said they would be deployed within two to four days across the Capital to help government agencies combat air pollution as mandated by their reinstatement order issued on October 24 by the Delhi Disaster Management Authority, which has the L-G as its Chairman.
The CM’s remarks came a day after Mr. Saxena slammed the government for missing the November 1 deadline to deploy the volunteers for pollution-mitigation efforts.
The civil defence volunteers were dismissed as bus marshals by the L-G on October 27 last year on grounds of “improper recruitment process”, eight years after they were hired by the AAP government and deployed in city buses for the security of women.
The L-G, while reinstating them till February-end, had ordered the government to come up with a “concrete scheme based on due process” for their future engagement after the end of the four-month employment period.
Commenting on the issue, the CM said, “Within a week, the Delhi government will send a proposal to the L-G to regularise the [former] bus marshals.”
She also blamed the BJP for “attempting to exploit” the issue for political gains.
Ms. Atishi said it was the BJP that had conspired through the Centre-controlled bureaucracy to stop their salaries in April 2023 and “repeatedly recommended the termination of their services”.
“Now, the BJP should ensure approval to the proposal for the regularisation of their services instead of doing dirty politics,” she added. The CM claimed that the condition of contractual workers is dismal across the BJP-ruled States.
“If there’s one party in the country that has regularised the services of contractual workers, it is the Aam Aadmi Party,” she claimed.
‘Govt. negligent’
Reacting to it, Delhi BJP chief Virendra Sachdeva told reporters that his party leaders would visit Ms. Atishi’s residence to seek an answer from her on as to why her government missed the deadline to reappoint the civil defence volunteers.
He dared her to name one BJP-ruled State where contractual workers are being removed or remained unpaid.
“Civil defence volunteers are temporary workers who receive daily wages and due to the Atishi government’s negligence, it doesn’t seem that they will be reinstated in next three-four days. As a result, they are likely to lose at least seven days of wages,” he said.
Published - November 04, 2024 01:02 am IST
