A Parliamentary Committee has asked the Defence Ministry to consider regularising contract workers of Nasik division of Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) on a priority and address their employment-related issues immediately as their work was of "perennial" nature.
The Action Taken Report (ATR) of the Committee on Petitions, which considered the HAL's contract workers' plea, said they fulfilled eligibility criteria for posts in the unskilled sector and, so, the Ministry should have no objection in regularlising them.
It said their demand was yet to be resolved as the Central Government Industrial Tribunal-cum-Labour Court at Mumbai had not adjudicated on the issue.
Noting that the workers were poor and belonged to weaker sections of society, the committee said though it recommended to the Ministry to make sincere efforts for an early decision to resolve the issue expeditiously within a time frame, the fact remained that the workers continued to suffer hardship and mental agony.
The committee said it had also recommended that the workers, being quite experienced, should be given opportunity and priority for their absorption and regularisation against regular posts in HAL subject to their suitability for the jobs and fulfilling the necessary requirements.
The casual workers had in their petition stated that they were working in the Nasik division for the last 20 to 25 years, but they were not being regularised, granted benefits and paid higher wages on par with their counterparts in the Hyderabad division of HAL.
The ATR said the committee was not convinced with the Ministry's submission that it would not be appropriate to follow the procedure adopted in HAL's Hyderabad division two decades ago.
