PATIALA: A large number of the general category employees today held a protest meeting at PSPCL head office and Punjabi University Patiala against the statement of Chief Minister on independence day that his government is committed to implementing the 85th. amendment in the state.
The PSPCL employees were led by Kuljeet Singh Ratol President PSEB unit, Gurdeep Singh Tiwana, Rajeev Kumar, Gurmeet Singh Lubana, and Kuldeep Singh. The employees at Punjabi University were led by Jagdish Singh chief organiser, Davinder Pal Sharma General Secretary, and Sukhvir Pal Singh President.
PSPCL employees submitted a memorandum addressed to the chief minister residence which was received by the Tehsildar. Ratol said that in case the 85th. amendment is implemented all the top posts in all the department and corporations will be grabbed by SC/ST employees and general category employees will have to forgo their chances for promotion forever.
V K Gupta spokesperson said that in the year 2018 the direct recruitment of 272311 employees was made and out of these 66224, SC/ST employees were recruited against their share quota and 19758 against merrit thus the total recruitment of SC/ST employees exceeds 25% of total posts.
Similarly in promotions their share quotas id 22.34% in the group posts and 19.99% in group B posts.
This shows that the SC/ST category employees are fully represented in all the government departments as per their share quota posts and in most of the cases they are overrepresented. There is a need to identify creamy layer employees before deciding to implement the 85th. amendment in Punjab.
Jagdish Singh of Punjabi university demanded that the Punjab Government should not take hasty decisions which have very long implications and cannot be reversed.
Sukhvir Pal Singh demanded setting up of a general category welfare commission as promised by the congress party at the time of the last assembly elections.