Are government employees a new constituency for Mehbooba, Drabu?

Sahil Rasgotra. Updated: 1/14/2018 1:51:24 AM Front Page

JAMMU: If all goes well, the general elections are three years away from now, but if there is a snap poll any time soon, some four million people, nearly one-third of state's entire population are on Mehbooba Mufti's side.
It is a coalition government of PDP and BJP but the way Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti and her Finance Minister Haseeb Drabu are reaching out to the government employees and the pensioners, besides the workers in organised and unorganised sector, looks 'politically remarkable'. Over the past few months, the government has remained focused on wooing the employees, around 4.5 lakh in service, besides around 1.5 lakh pensioners with a number of initiatives, benefitting not only these 6 lakh, but their families as well.
In the budget 2018-19, Finance Minister Drabu announced insurance scheme for these employees and pensioners, covering 4 family members of each of these 6 lakh individuals, thus taking the total number of beneficiaries to around 30 lakh- a quarter of state's entire population.
"The scheme would affect lives of 30 lakh people," Drabu's assertion in the Assembly, made it clear that he is doing number-crunching of more than just the finances.
This was not all, however. Not much time has elapsed since the government, in a historic decision, went ahead with regularization of as many as 60,000 casual workers in the organised sector. What this meant was bringing under the umbrella of benefits, 3 lakh more people- 4 from families of each of these 60,000 workers.
On January 8, traffic in winter capital city Jammu remained unprecedentedly choked for the whole day. It turned out later that the government had got over thousands of workers of the total 3 lakh in the unorganised sector to the venue, where it launched a welfare scheme for them in unorganised sector in terms of accidental deaths, injuries or normal deaths.
Even as the deputy Chief Minister Dr Nirmal Singh was also present there on the dais, together with the Chief Minister and Finance Minister, but the fact that this event was linked with the second death anniversary of former Chief Minister Mufti Mohammed Sayeed also conveyed the message that this was PDP's outreach.
In the 'feel good' budget that was announced by Finance Minister on January 11, besides a number of benefits like hike in Dearness Allowance, Provident Fund among others, a major highlight was extension of 'Assured Career Progression Scheme' for Gazetted Officers of those services/departments which, until now, had not been covered under the scheme and are facing stagnation in promotions.
Generally there is a 'feel good' factor among the employees about the various policies the Mehbooba Mufti government has taken in recent past for the employees.
The freshest cases were seen in past couple of days after the announcement of budget 2018-19. On Saturday, the Jammu and Kashmir Administrative Services Officers Association hailed the Finance Minister for presenting an employee-friendly budget, while expressed their gratefulness to the Chief Minister for initiating various employee-friendly measures over the past three years.
On Thursday, hours after the Budget was announced, a deputation of Civil Secretariat Non Gazetted Employees Union (CSNGEU) led by its president, Mir Ghulam Rasool had met the Chief Minister, thanking her for the pro-employee steps taken in the Budget.
Both these employees' bodies, asserted that Mehbooba government will continue to receive excellent cooperation and support from the employees.
Even Mehbooba is keeping a keen eye on the developments and is not shy of highlighting these measures.
On Friday, while speaking on motion of thanks on Governor's address, Mehbooba Mufti said a large number of welfare schemes were launched by her Government but could not be highlighted because political scenario always dominates the scene in the State and the country.
She called regularising the services of 60 thousand daily wagers as the largest public welfare step taken by any Government in recent times, while not forgetting Muhafiz- the welfare scheme for around 3 lakh workers in unorganised sector.


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