Sajad Lone criticises NC on daily wagers’ issue

Srinagar, Jun 29: Peoples Conference (PC) President and MLA Handwara Sajad Gani Lone today criticised the National Conference (NC) government for not taking effective steps for the regularizing of daily wagers.

In a statement, he described the National Conference’s election manifesto promise in this connection as “magic and mythology.”

He added that the official count of daily Wagers is 61,000. “That is the official count. But his number could exceed to 100,000. The daily wagers are paid Rs 9,000 per month per person. For 61,000 daily wagers the total salary bill as on date should be Rs 658 crores approximately,” Lone said.

He then addressed the cost implications of regularisation. Challenging the longstanding reliance on committees, Lone raised a series of questions targeting administrative inertia. He asked, “What is the status of committee? How many meetings of the committee have taken place? Has not every government constituted a committee? What research is being done in these committees that four to five governments have set up committees and no result have come out yet,” he said.