KHNAM concerned over MeECL appointment issue

A REPORTER

SHILLONG, Aug 16: The Khun Hynniewtrep National Awakening Movement (KHNAM) State Youth Wing on Wednesday submitted a memorandum to the Chief Secretary to the Government of Meghalaya concerning the engagement of casual employee on a contractual basis at the Meghalaya Energy Corporation Limited (MeECL).

Thomas Passah, President KHNAM State Youth Wing said that the MeECL on July 27 has notified that all casual workers engaged under the MeECL and its subsidiary Company are henceforth to be engaged on a contractual basis for a period of one year, by duly signing the contract prepared by the Corporation between the employee and the employer(s).

In this connection, he said, “The MeECL has violated the Government of Meghalaya office Memorandum dated April 18, 1989 which has instructed that appointment on contract basis has to be for specific time bound schemes or programmes or for obtaining technical man power from outside the State to temporarily tide over the State’s requirement till such time suitable local personnel are available.” He said the MeECL has a large number of employees employed with the MeECL and its subsidiary company, who have been employed and served the MeECL for many years with service of more then 10,15,20 years.

“Now the corporation is forcing these employees to convert them as contractual employee and to do away with the casual employee. This is a clear attempt of suppression of rights. It is seen that with trends like this, if this contract is allowed to be completed, we could sadly say that the MeECL will not have any employee but rather slaves working in the corporation,” he said.

According to him, there is a clear notification from the Government of Meghalaya dated April 18, 1989 that all proposals for appointment on Contract Service are submitted to the Cabinet for its approval, after having obtaining the approval of the Personnel and Finance Department. He said the MeECL has clearly violated the above notification and therefore, the attempt of the MeECL to convert all casual employees into contractual employee for a period of one year needs to be stop immediately. “As per the contract agreement, the corporation has also not followed or incorporated the “Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Act 2017 which came into force on April 01, 2017,” he said.