The AAP will prioritise regularisation of contractual workers and secure their rights wherever it comes to power, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said on Saturday days after the party-led Punjab government regularised 8,376 teachers.
While appreciating the Punjab government, the national convener of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) said other states should also do the same. He said the Delhi government had also brought in a Bill to regularise guest teachers in the national capital but the Centre did not approve it.
"I appeal to other states and the Central government to regularise all their contractual employees. The AAP staunchly favours that contractual employees should be regularised in all parts of the country. We will ensure that wherever we come to power, we will give them permanent jobs. It is their right," he said during an online briefing.
Claiming that the regularisation of the services of 8,736 contractual teachers by the AAP government in Punjab was done for the first time in India, he said several thousand contract workers who are still in line will also be regularised. Kejriwal said there is a false narrative about permanent government employees being incompetent.
"Several states and the Central government are systematically destroying government jobs one after the other. With the economy of the country expanding and states also witnessing economic growth, it should have led to an increase in government jobs. How can they get reduced?" he posed.
Kejriwal claimed that many permanent government jobs were kept vacant and employees were hired on a temporary basis. "It is being said that permanent employees are slackers. This is a dangerous misconception. We have busted this myth in Delhi. The education revolution in Delhi is a result of succinct efforts of permanent as well as guest teachers," he said.
Similarly, government doctors, nurses and hospital staff have done a wonderful job in government hospitals and mohalla clinics, he said. Kejriwal hoped that the wave which has emerged out of Punjab will spread in the entire country.
"We tried to do the same in Delhi. We introduced a bill in the Assembly to regularise the guest teachers. However, the Central government did not give the assent to the bill," he added. Ruing that Delhi is not a full state, he said "the democratically elected government (in Delhi) does not have a lot of powers".
Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann announced on the occasion of Teachers Day that 8,736 contractual teachers will be regularised. Asserting that they are not regularising just for the sake of it, Kejriwal said many of the contractual employees raised the demand more than a decade ago.
"The regularisation process is taking some time because we are taking a proper legal recourse so that the move is airtight if someone challenges it in a court of law," he said.
"They have been protesting for the past 10-15 years. They were extremely stressed and fed up with constant protesting. In this entire mess, a lot of them got overaged. The AAP government in Punjab is giving age relaxation to them as well," Kejriwal added.
(With PTI inputs)
