Chandigarh, August 31
Punjab ‘patwaris’ who had threatened a pen-down strike softened their stand on Thursday, saying they will attend work in their own revenue circles but not take on any “additional” responsibilities.
The representatives of the state’s revenue officers — patwaris and kanungos — claimed that this was not a climbdown and work in several hundred revenue circles will suffer from Friday.
They also announced they will move the Punjab and Haryana High Court against the state government’s decision to invoke the East Punjab Essential Services (Maintenance) Act (EPESMA).
The revenue officers under the banner of the Revenue Patwar Union had called for the strike following the registration of a corruption case against a patwari and a kanungo in Sangrur district a week ago.
According to the Union, there are 4,716 revenue circles in Punjab and only 1,523 patwaris. They take care of the work of the circle where they are posted and also in 3,193 additional circles.
“The revenue officials will not perform the work of the 3,193 circles from Friday,” Revenue Patwar Union president Harvir Singh Dhindsa said here.
“We will all work in our circles. But we will not do any additional work,” he said and clarified that they will continue to do floods-related work.
Dhindsa said that if any officer tried to burden them with additional work, they would move the high court for violating their “human rights”.
On Wednesday, Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann had through the chief secretary directed the financial commissioner (revenue) to invoke the provisions of the Act so that criminal proceedings can be launched against employees in case they go on strike at a time when the state was racked because of floods.
Dhindsa said that an attempt has been made to threaten them by invoking EPESMA and demanded that the state government hire officers for the 3,193 revenue circles.
Patwaris and kanungos mainly maintain records regarding land ownerships.
Terming the case against the patwari and kanungo “false”, members of the Union had demanded that it be withdrawn. They also claimed that before registration of the case, the approvals of the deputy commissioner and financial commissioner were not taken.
The revenue officials are also protesting against the government for increasing the training period of 1,090 patwaris from one year to one and a half years, and for paying those on contract Rs 167 per day (Rs 5,000 a month).
Dhindsa told reporters that a meeting between protesting revenue officials and a principal secretary-rank officer was scheduled for Thursday but it was cancelled.
Members of the Union are ready to face any action the government wants to take, he said, but asserted that human rights cannot be allowed to be violated.
He said that they will move the high court against the ESMA notification and dubbed the state government’s move a violation of human rights and the Constitution.
Slamming the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in Punjab, Dhindsa said if the party does not follow the Constitution and tries to suppress the voice of employees, then it should remove pictures of Dr BR Ambedkar from government offices.
Referring to the chief minister’s statement that patwaris and kanungos were getting a monthly salary of Rs 1.5 lakh a month, Dhindsa dared Mann to prove that if any ‘patwari’ or ‘kanungo’ was getting that much salary and said it does not behove him to make such “false” statements.
It was the AAP in 2021 that opposed the appointment of retired employees but after it came to power, it also hired retired revenue officials, he said.
Separately, the DC Office Employees’ Association will observe a pen-down strike from September 11 to September 13 to press for their various demands.
