The Patiala police resorted to a lathicharge on protesting members of the Apprenticeship Linemen Union on June 5, when they tried to block the entrance to the Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL) office, in a bid to intensify their agitation over the recruitment demand.
The police also registered an FIR against the protesters, prompting the Opposition parties to attack ruling AAP over the incident.
Meanwhile, for the government, it seems the bigger concern is preventing the unrest from snowballing into a wider movement.
Every five years, as elections approach, the discontent of nearly 3.50 lakh state employees and 3 lakh pensioners starts spilling onto the roads.
Their anger carries electoral weight, with each employee or pensioner influencing at least two eligible voters within the family, a fact no political party can afford to ignore.
Meanwhile, as protests by different employees’ unions gather momentum, state’s ruling AAP has started taking steps to address their long-pending three key demands — unpaid arrears of dearness allowance, restoration of the Old Pension Scheme and permanent appointment of outsourced and contractual staff.
Finance Minister Harpal Singh Cheema, who heads the Cabinet sub-committee looking into the issues, said the government was taking up all concerns one by one and trying to find an amicable solution.
“While the tragedy of our government in its initial phase was that we inherited from our predecessors unpaid arrears, a huge workforce of contractual employees and precarious finances, the achievement of the AAP regime lies in our willingness to right the historic wrongs while we kept trying to improve the fiscal health,” he told The Tribune.
He said the frequency of meetings with various employees’ unions had been increased to address their grievances.
While the matter related to payment of the DA is still pending before the Punjab and Haryana High Court, where the AAP government could seek a staggered clearance of the dues, Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann has tried to address the issue of the regularisation of services of 65,000 employees across 51 departments.
The Punjab Cabinet approved two Ordinances on May 30 — The Punjab State Outsourced Personnel (Transition to Contractual Engagement) Bill, 2026; and the Punjab Contractual Personnel (Absorption Against Sanctioned vacancies) Bill, 2026.
In the next five days, it also constituted a seven-member officers’ committee to update the data of outsourced employees and finalise a format or categorisation of different sets of personnel besides calculating the total vacant sanctioned posts.
According to orders issued by Chief Secretary KAP Sinha on June 5, the committee will have to submit its report on the categorisation of these employees by June 12, while the deadline for compiling all data of eligible employees is June 19.
According to sources, those working as outsourced employees in Group C & D categories for five years (except for those in hazardous jobs like linemen, safai karamcharis, firefighters, who should be working as outsourced employees for three years) will be moved to contractual employees’ category.
After serving 10 years as contractual employees, they can then be regularised against sanctioned posts.
The committee will also examine how those already working as contractual employees for over 10 years could be immediately regularised.
The two Ordinances will have to be tabled in the Vidhan Sabha for the passage before their enactment as law.
The employees, however, continue to be restive.
Sukhchain Khera, a leader of the Sanjha Mullazam Manch, an umbrella body of several employees unions, accused the government of dilly-dallying on paying pending arrears, citing lack of funds and that Punjab employees were among the highest paid in the country.
“The salary has been fixed by different Pay Commissions from time to time and it’s our right to get the DA. If the government has money to give huge subsidies for free power or doles to women, how come the treasury gets empty for employees,” he asked wondering if the two ordinances would ever become laws.
The lack of faith in the new regularisation policy stems from the fact that the demand predates the AAP government. In 2016, the SAD-BJP government enacted the Punjab Ad hoc, Contractual, Daily Wage, Temporary, Work Charged and Outsourced Employees’ Welfare Act.
The law provided a framework for regularising employees, who had completed at least three years of continuous service.
However, legal disputes and other challenges marred its implementation.
In 2021, under the Congress government led by Captain Amarinder Singh and later Charanjit Singh Channi, another regularisation framework was introduced.
Employee organisations argued that the policy was restrictive and did not adequately address concerns of outsourced workers.
When AAP assumed power in 2022, it promised a more comprehensive solution. However, it has so far failed to allay the fears.
