SRINAGAR: J&K Handicrafts (Sale & Export) Corporation (Kashmir Government Arts Emporium), Srinagar, Department of Industries & Commerce, Government of J&K have urged the Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha to felicitate early release of penesionary benefits of employees who had opted for Voluntary retirement
In a statement issued here by these employees it said that the corporation was established in 1948 with a view to provide and facilitate the artisans’ easy access to the indigenous as well as international market for selling their products by eradicating the role of middlemen. The corporation not only had played a key role in procuring the world famous Kashmiri handicrafts from the poor artisans under one roof and selling them in local as well as international market, thus providing indirect employment to lakhs of artisans and also provided direct employment to thousands of employees working in the Corporation.
But the existing image of the Corporation is that almost 80 per cent of the employees have tendered voluntary retirement from services even they have 10 to 15 years of service still in their credit, this is because, the employees were deprived of their monthly salaries for years together, that is why they prefer to opt for VRSs with a view to get pensionary benefits like CP Fund, Leave Salary and even pending regular monthly salaries to survive by procuring life saving medicines and essential commodities. But, even after the lapse of years together, these employees have not been paid their pensionary benefits as a result they are facing tremendous difficulties in these hard days of COVID 19 pandemic.
Opting for voluntary retirement from services and due to normal retirement of the employees, the Head office of the Emporium as well as the outlets of the Corporation in the entire country are without sufficient manpower and are run by skeleton staff as a result the sales have gone depleted to a great extent. In past, the Managing Directors never stopped the salary of the employees and always sought budgetary support from the government to run the show and keep the flame burning
We the employees of J&K Handicrafts (Sale & Export) Corporation (Kashmir Government Arts Emporium), Srinagar, Department of Industries & Commerce, Government of J&K, Srinagar who have opted for Voluntary Retirement from Services (VRS) due to non-payment of their monthly salaries for the years together, invite your kind attention towards the following facts with a request that due consideration may be extended to our genuine demands on humanitarian grounds.
That we had been working in J&K Handicrafts (Sale & Export) Corporation (Kashmir Government Arts Emporium), Srinagar, Department of Industries & Commerce, Government of J&K, Srinagar since over last three decades and spent our youth in building the image of the Corporation by our diligence, assiduousness, sincerity, toil, honesty and what not for decades together.
That due to non-disbursement of our monthly salaries for the last about two years, we were compelled to opt for Voluntary Retirement from Services as we could not arrange life saving medication and essential commodities in these hard days of COVID19 pandemic when one needs more medication and care.

KR Desk