Srinagar: The recently regularized employees under the National Youth Corps (NYC) have asked the state government to re-look into the matter concerning their monthly wages.

The NYC volunteers were engaged on the wages paid to them prior to their disengagement which stands at Rupees 2500 per month.

“2500 monthly wages is a logically unaccepted amount for livelihood but government underestimated the emotions of educated youth,” Mudasir Hassan, ex-president of NYC Association said.

He said that the authorities have no option but to rethink about the recent SRO. “The current government should enhancement the monthly wages and if not then at least labour rights shall be kept into consideration,” he added.

The state government had engaged over 8,000 youth as volunteers in different departments during the 2010 summer unrest under Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan, Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports.

In 2012, the then government disengaged the volunteers but after the completion of two years, the volunteers were asked to continue and assured that we will be engaged permanently.

However, their struggle continued until the current government last week announced their regularization.

“We were hopeful about our future after fighting for many years with the government about our regularization in government departments. But when the latest order from the government came out it felt like a joke and a backstab,” said an NYC volunteer wishing anonymity.

Notably, the state government recently announced the regularization of 60,000 daily wage workers in different departments of the state.

According to the order, “An NYC worker shall initially be re-engaged on the wages as were paid to him/her immediately before his/her disengagement”.

The order further said that an NYC worker shall be entitled to regular engagement strictly on the pattern of a CSLW (Casual workers) on the completion of prescribed period of continuous service, after clubbing his/her service rendered earlier as NYC worker.

However, the order does not specify the ‘prescribed period’ and many believe that it could be from three years to ten years.

Guest