Job Security Is A Distant ​Dream​ Under Chandrababu Naidu

Amalapuram, West Godavari District: Holding party flags flying high, walking alongside, thousands of friends and supporters, who hold the YSR Congress party’s cause dear to their hearts, joined me on my Padayatra today with extraordinary fervour and characteristic enthusiasm. Walking on the bridge which my father, the late Dr. YS Rajasekhara Reddy, had built across the river Vainateya, fulfilling a decades-old, long-standing dream of the local villagers here, gave me tremendous happiness and pride.

The twin Godavari districts are the rice bowls of the state of Andhra Pradesh. Amalapuram lies at the heart of this fertile region, a nodal hub in the verdant Godavari belt. It is indeed a sad reflection of the pathetic state of affairs prevalent here to learn that farmers from these areas, which have been blessed by nature, are finding it
difficult to eke out a livelihood. What is painfully worse is that many of them are forced to migrate to other states and countries for their livelihood. The insensitivity of the TDP rulers defies description. When farmers, unable to suffer any more losses, finding survival itself a challenge, and left with no other option, wanted to announce a crop holiday, the government threatened them with cases! What sort of dictatorial rule is this? How callous can the TDP leaders be?

On the one hand, this region has abundant oil deposits and boasts of the presence of major oil companies in the country. At the same time, ironically enough, youth from these areas are migrating to other places in a desperate quest for employment. With no other alternative left, many of them are heading towards Gulf countries seeking jobs. Clearly, the TDP rulers have forsaken their responsibility towards the people, absorbed as they are in their own selfish political interests.

Also Read:Praja Sankalpa Yatra Sounds Death Knell For TDP In 2019

My Padayatra moved ahead amidst a sea of affectionate and enthusiastic humanity. Along the way,representatives from various employees groups met me with their petitions listing out their grievances. Contract workers of the electricity department complained that Chandrababu Naidu made a host of promises to them at the time of elections and later threw them by the wayside, as if they were of no use. When they protested saying that they had been deceived, he set up committees with the sole intention of delaying a resolution of the problem.

Workers of the drinking water supply scheme lamented that they had been supplying drinking water to the villages of the region for two decades and yet, for the past eight months they had not been paid their salaries. ASHA workers told me that their state was worse than that of daily wage labourers, who were at least assured of remuneration at the end of the day. “In name we are Asha (hope) workers, but our lives are filled with darkness and gloom,” they deplored. “There is probably no hope for us and we are condemned to lead a life of misery enslaved in this manner,
" said these Asha workers.

Women from DWCRA groups had the same story to tell. They too are being denied their salaries and have been working in the hope that they would be paid. They are being used to do work related to the ruling party. The worst thing is that the government is trying to ease them out bringing in, what it terms, empowered women’s groups, the DWCRA animators said.

Outsourcing staff in the market committee also came and met me today. They said that survival was becoming increasingly difficult for them on the meagre salaries which they were being paid. Job insecurity made their situation even more perilous, they complained. “Your father took care of our interest and welfare. After him, no one has paid attention to us or considered an increase in our salaries.” Staff from village panchayats working in different positions, and CRPs of Sarva Siksha Abhiyan

said that they had been working for years and yet are not being paid minimum wages.

There was one common refrain, a single strand that ran through their lives— they were being denied minimum wages and were forced to work without any sense of job security. There was a common note in their voices of indignation and protest. Promises were made to them, commitments given and now when the TDP rulers were reminded of them, and when justice was sought, they were being threatened and tormented. How can one expect justice to be rendered to them by Chandrababu Naidu who feels that government jobs are a burden and believes in the efficacy of outsourcing and contract employment?

God alone knows the truth of regularisation of jobs, or giving new ones, but Chandrababu Naidu has been outsourcing work instead of filling up the existing vacancies. Is it too much to expect job security from Chandrababu Naidu, who has been gradually privatising one sector after another .

I have a question for the chief minister—your party manifesto stated that you would provide a job to every household and that contract employees would be regularised. There is very little time left in your tenure. Have you provided a single fresh job? Have you effected the regularisation of at least one contract employee? Is it not true that even existing vacancies of permanent jobs have been filled up with outsourcing staff?