Minister solves civic body retrenchment issue

Statesman News Service

MALDA, Aug. 1: A meeting between the state urban development minister Mr Asok Bhattacharya and the Malda Congress leadership today has given the English Bazaar Municipality breathing space on the touchy issue of retrenchment of the civic body’s casual staff. The directorate of local bodies has instructed the EBM authorities to retrench its 450 casual staff engaged by the successive boards of the civic body over the years. The issue has effected cracks in the local Congress leadership triggering a blame game between the factions. The Malda MP Mr AH Khan Choudhury, his sister Ms Rubi Noor, who is also the Malda district Congress president and Sujapur MLA, and civic body chief Mr Narendranath Tiwari met the minister in Kolkata today and urged him to formulate an alternative method to overcome the present crisis of the issue of retrenchment of casual workers. The minister reportedly ensured there was no need to execute the DLB order right away. He has instructed the delegation to furnish details about the pattern of casual workers engaged by the civic body since 1992. According to the civic body chief, Mr Tiwari, the minister said that his department is formulating a system and pattern of casual workers’ recruitment according to the requirement of job in civic body for public service. “The government would send guidelines for the recruitment of casual workers to the civic bodies and the civic bodies would have to follow the guideline for the recruitment of casual workers,” Mr Tiwari, said. According to the EBM chief, the minister told the Congress leaders that the EBM would have to disengage all casual workers and then engage them under a contractor who would deal with the matter of all casual workers in different categories. The minister told the Malda Congress leaders that the government would not spend funds for the casual workers claiming permanent job after a few years in the civic body. It may be noted that English Bazaar Congress MLA Mr Krishnendu Narayan Choudhury, who was the former EBM chief, has been stating that the civic body would have to follow the recent government order for retrenchment. His logic: “The government would stop funding the municipality if the DLB’s instruction is not complied with.”