The government employees have always been a key factor in deciding the fate of parties in Himachal Pradesh Assembly polls as their numbers are formidable.
There is little opportunity in the private sector in HP, although the industry is growing here over the last two decades.
Though the successive governments in the state claim to be the well wishers of employees and offer sops to them to sway the votes in their favour, this section feels neglected and underpaid.
Over two lakh employees are working in the public sector in HP, and there are 1.52 lakh pensioners, who form a sizeable chunk of voters together with their families.
The governments in HP generally follow the trend of Punjab in terms of salaries and other benefits, but the counterparts in the neighbouring state have been in better condition.
“The government had announced various sops for employees, but most of them are feeling high and dry as various major promises were not fulfilled by the government,” a government employee on the condition of anonymity said.
He said that the government has reduced the regularisation period of contractual employees from the existing 5 years to 3 years, there has been dissent on the issue of pay scale. “There has been some riders due to which these employees would get pay scale at par with their counterparts,” he said.
Besides employees, the pensioners also seem to be dissatisfied with the government as they are also accusing the government of not fulfilling the promises.
“There have been systematic problems in government departments which are leading to delay in granting pension benefits to retired employees. Further, the government has not provided increase in pension allowance after attaining the age of 65, 70 and 75 years,” BK Sood, president of the Pension Welfare body said.
“Congress governments in the state and at Centre have always been the well wisher of government employees and various sops and facilities are being provided to them,” state Congress spokesperson IN Mehta told The Statesman.
Mehta said the government has brought policies for regularisation and welfare of PTA, PAT, SMC teachers and other employees which would prove a boon for them in near future. “The government has also provided the benefits of 4-9-14 pay scale to all employees and the party is confident that they would vote for our candidates in ensuing assembly polls, resulting in the party completing ‘Mission Repeat’ in HP,” he said.
On the other hand, Mahender Dharmani, state BJP spokesperson, claimed it was the BJP, which is true well wisher of government employees as the Congress government pursued a political agenda in appointments and posting.
“The government employees, even, the IAS, IPS were discriminated and weren’t given their due as per their seniority to favour the officials who were close CM and his loyalists,” he said, adding the Congress tenure saw the highest number of litigations in Administrative Tribunal in the last 5 years.