An emergency general meeting of the Sado Assam Forest Department Casual Workers Association was held on July 6 at the staff building of the forest department’s Punjabi headquarters “Forest Building”.
Association president Chikan Deka chaired the meeting in the presence of more than 75 salaried casual workers from different parts of the state, and secretary Dhananjay Das explained the purpose. In the meeting, the appointment of casual forest workers appointed before April 1993 for various reasons was demanded, including fixed pay.
The forest department’s top authority was requested to resolve the issue the salaried casual workers faced at the earliest, especially after the state government’s finance department approved it.
One may recall that based on the same order, about 165 unpaid casual forest workers were appointed in several forest divisions of BTAD last January along with fixed payments. However, there has been anger among casual workers over not initiating the recruitment process so far in the forest divisions of the Brahmaputra and Barak valleys.