Punjab cabinet approves policy for regularising services of contractual teachers

CHANDIGARH: The Punjab Cabinet on Monday gave a nod to a policy framed for regularising the services of contractual, ad hoc, daily wage and temporary teachers who have completed 10 years of service. It decided to regularise the services of around 9,000 teachers by placing them in a special cadre.

According to the policy, the beneficiary employees will continue in service till 58 years of age and they will be treated as fresh appointees. The decision was taken in a meeting of the Council of Ministers chaired by Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann here, according to an official release. A three-member committee, formed to explore the ways and means to regularise the services of the contractual employees, submitted its report to the Cabinet which accepted the same.

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The AAP government in the state had earlier announced that it was committed to regularising the services of contractual and temporary employees. The decision comes ahead of the high-stakes assembly polls in Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat. There are around 36,000 contractual and temporary employees in different government departments. Teachers are the first set of contractual and temporary employees whose services are going to be regularised. After the Cabinet meeting, the chief minister, in Anandpur Sahib, said his government has decided to regularise the service of 8,736 teachers. He said services of 5,442 education service providers, 1,130 Inclusive education teachers and others will be regularised.

According to the official statement, previously various appointments to 'Group C' and 'Group D' level posts in government had been made on a contract and temporary basis based on imminent requirements and exigencies of service. Some of such employees have now put in more than 10 years of service. The Cabinet opined that at this stage, to relieve these employees or to replace them in this capacity in service with another set of people will be unjustified and improper. This step is taken to ensure that such employees do not suffer from uncertainty and harassment and to grant them the security of tenure, according to the statement.

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The AAP government took a policy route to regularise the services of contractual and temporary employees. It will allow the state government to bypass the legislation route. The first law framed for the regularisation of contractual employees in 2016 by the then SAD-BJP government is subjudice.

The Charanjit Singh Channi government had also brought a bill – the Punjab Protection and Regularisation of Contractual Employees Bill-2021 – to regularise the services of 36,000 contractual, daily wage, ad-hoc and temporary employees. It was passed in November last year. Later, the governor sent the file to the then chief minister's office with some queries for clarification.