Leh, February 28, 2025: Two separate delegations comprising casual/daily rated labourers engaged post-2015 and Watch and Ward called on the Hon’ble Lieutenant Governor of Ladakh, Brigadier (Dr) BD Mishra (Retd), at the Lieutenant Governor’s Secretariat. Principal Secretary, Sanjiv Khirwar, IAS; Commissioner/Secretary to the HLG, Dr L Franklin, IAS; PCCF Ladakh, Brij Mohan Sharma, IFoS; Deputy Commissioner, Leh, Santosh Sukhadeve, IAS and Director, Finance, Dr Safdar Ali, IRS, were present in the meeting.

In both meetings, the delegates requested the HLG’s intervention in enhancing their monthly salaries/remuneration as they are currently being paid lower salaries due to which they are facing lots of financial issues.

The delegation comprising Watch and Ward of Forest Department informed the HLG that they are currently paid Rs 750 per month. Similarly, the delegation led by President of Casual Labour informed the HLG that highly skilled casual labourers are also paid lower salaries.

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Director, Finance, Dr Safdar Ali, IRS, informed the HLG that recently UT Administration raised salaries of 1900 casual/daily-rated labourers who were engaged by different departments before 2015. He also informed that there are hundreds of other daily-rated/casual labourers who were engaged after 2015. He further informed that a committee has been constituted to look into their case and make recommendations based on their findings.

Stating that none of the daily-rated/casual labourers engaged by government departments should be excluded from their list, the HLG asked Director, Finance to issue an order as per the Supreme Court of India guidelines to ban the engagement of casual/daily-rated labourers by the departments. He also stated that terms of reference (ToR) should be prepared for the committee members so that they could examine the issue holistically. He also emphasised that while making recommendations for the benefit of daily-rated/casual labourers, it must be ensured that none of the laws/rulings of the Hon’ble Courts are violated.

Highlighting the need to provide decent wages to everyone, the HLG also asked Director Finance to look at the UT Administration’s budgetary allocations and also to ask departments to define the roles/responsibilities and number of hours of duties performed by the daily-rated/casual labourers so that the Committee could take appropriate decisions keeping all these points in mind.