CHANDIGARH: The Punjab Government led by the Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann is fully committed to cater to the overall welfare of its employees and would never go against the interests of common man. The Forest and Wildlife Preservation Department occupies priority in the scheme of things of the State Government.
This was stated by the Forest and Wildlife Preservation Minister Lal Chand Kataruchak while chairing series of meetings with the Forest Rangers and Deputy Forest Rangers Association, Janglat Workers Union (Punjab), Punjab Van Vibhag Workers Union and Punjab Subordinate Services Federation, at the forest complex in Sector-68.
With regard to the issues of Forest Rangers, the Minister made it clear that new recruitments would be made only as per the Government rules so as to avoid the unnecessary litigation at later stages. About the staff shortage in the range offices, the Minister divulged that a plan is under active consideration to depute a person each in the range offices in the re-structuring process. The Minister also asked the officers of the department to study the pattern of the Food, Civil Supplies & Consumer Affairs Department pertaining to the appointment of Law Officers to deal with the court cases.
Giving a patient hearing to the issues raised by the Janglat Workers Union (Punjab), the Minister said that the matter of retaining the retirement age of the Class-IV employees at 60 years has been sent to the Personnel Department already. The Minister also directed the officers to instruct all the DFOs to ensure that the salaries of the workers are paid on time and not delayed beyond 7th of every month. Regarding the demand of workers for minimum salary of Rs. 25000, Mr. Kataruchak disclosed that an advisory committee has been formed in this regard and the issue is at the next stage.
Reiterating the employee friendly stand of the Punjab Government, the Minister said that during the one and a half year tenure of the present Government, as many as 185 new forest guards have been recruited apart from the clerks. This is aimed at efficient functioning of the department.
Among others present on the occasion included Financial Commissioner (Forests) Vikas Garg, PCCF R.K. Mishra, APCCF (Administration) Dharminder Sharma and APPCCF (Development) Saurav Gupta.
Dr Balbir Singh informed that anyone can get his food product tested through these vans at a nominal cost of Rs 50 and seventy types of tests are currently available.
He has instructed to upgrade the testing facility to include microbial testing of food to rule out bacterial infection in the food.
Dr Balbir Singh also visited the newly set-up Food Microbiology Laboratory and directed the officials to strengthen the capacities of Lab with respect to testing of Food and Drugs in general and particularly in the field of Pathogens testing, Antibiotic Resistance, Pesticides residue testing and steroids in Gym supplements.
Commissioner Food and Drugs Administration Punjab Dr Abhinav Trikha and Dr Ajai Prakash Gupta, Director FSSAI were also present during the occassion.