The State Government has decided to enhance monthly minimum wages of Technical Assistants and also provided them additional powers. This was stated by Rural Development and Panchayati Raj Minister, Jai Ram Thakur here today.
He said that the Government had decided to provide two percent and 1.5 percent service fee to Technical Assistants for the works upto Rs. 50,000 and Rs. 1.50 lakhs respectively undertaken in the panchayats. Besides, the Government had also decided to pay Rs. 4,000 to Technical Assistants who have been empanelled from last eight years and a sum of Rs. 5,000 per month to those empanelled for over eight years.
He said that it was unfortunate that despite the facilities provided to Technical Assistants they had resorted to agitation. He said that the Government had taken several decisions from time to time to benefit them and was considering to give them additional benefits.
He said that Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal announced to enhance minimum monthly wages to Rs. 5500 in his budget speech 2012-13, which would come into force from April, 2012.
The Minister said that the agitation of Technical Assistants was irrelevant. He said that delay in payment to workers of MNREGA could result in removal of Technical Assistants from the Panel and the Government can also withhold the minimum wages of stir period. He asked the Technical Assistants to withdraw their strike in the interests of the State as well as themselves so that smooth working could be ensured.
