The PDD has for long been hiring men on daily wages for the risky maintenance work on electricity transmission lines. Not provided with the safety equipment while undertaking the often dangerous work, when they get seriously injured these hapless workers have little cover available for their families. Saima Bhat reports on travails of the daily-wagers who have lost their limbs on duty.

 

Some of the linemen who lost their arms while ensuring the power supply. KL Image

Two years have gone by since Chief Minister Omar Abdullah himself assured daily-wagers of the PDD (Power development department) that they would be regularized. That promise has been met in breach while the problems of daily-wagers have persisted, besides some among them becoming disabled after meeting accidents while on work.

“It is not only a matter of regularization for me, it has become a do or die like situation,” says Abdul Rashid Wani. He is a daily-wager with PDD for the last 18years (from March 1994) but on March 1, 2005, his work left him physically dependent forever. He recalls, “That day I was on duty working on a pole in Bemina area where I got electrocuted and when I opened my eyes I was in Delhi. I was lying on the bed half dead with my family, all of them weeping around me. After some time I realized I was lying there without both my arms”. His family shifted him to SKIMS hospital in Srinagar where he spent more than two months.

Abdul Rashid has undergone five surgeries since but when he met that accident his ‘department was waiting for him to die’ because they didn’t want him to become a burden on the department. But his parents arranged money from wherever they could and gave one lakh rupees to a private emergency charter to shift him to Delhi. Later he asked his department for compensation but when they refused he filed a case with the Labour Court through which he got a compensation of 3,08,000 rupees. He distributed the money among those he had borrowed from for his treatment.

“With the start of the day my dependence starts, from dusk to dawn my wife has to be available with me. She takes care of everything, from my bath to putting clothes on me and from feeding me to making the bed for sleep. My mother and children also help me and most of the times they try to counsel me” shares Rashid trying to hide his emotions. It is going to cost him more than 8 lakh rupees for artificial limbs but he avoids getting them, he feels he has more responsibilities for which he should start saving now.

Rashid has a daughter who is in class 11th now and her son is studying in class 6th. His eyes start twinkling when he talks about his children who have promised that they will take care of him in the longer run. He is desperate to get regular for which he has filed a case with High Court also so that he could satisfy the demands of his children who want to become doctors.

According to SRO 381 (26th August 1981) of the electricity department, the daily-wagers who have served the PDD for five to seven years will get regularized(through promotions) and if the department does not have any daily-wager then they will go for new recruitments. But there are people who have served the department for more than 20 years now and continue demanding regularization. Abdul Rashid is one of them but he was left to fend for himself after he met the accident despite having served the department for 11 long years. “I went to every possible political door and knocked for help. I was taken back into the department and since then I am working as a watch and ward.

Abdul Rashid is still on medication but he says most of his daily expenses go for travelling, as he cannot use public transport. He has to travel by an auto-rickshaw.  His faith in God keeps him going. “I am low at times but then I take it as a challenge from God and start gearing up again”.

The PDD has a staff strength of nearly 32,000 but most of the maintenance work is done by 5,000 daily wagers across the state. Mian Mushtaq, Vice President, the daily wagers association says that SRO 381 under which the process was initiated to regularize the daily wagers has not been implemented in the state despite thousands of vacancies available in all three regions. And importantly, the daily wagers who work for a meagre 125 rupees per day and look after most of the critical and often risky maintenance work are not compensated in case of accidents and emergencies as per law.

Mohammed Yasin Reshi was 22 years old when he got a job of a labourer in PDD in 1998. He was a matriculate but after getting the job he was very happy and enthusiastic to work. On April 24, 2007, as usual he was on work, on an electricity pole with little knowledge of the risks involved. He was joining a cable with the high-tension transmission wire (HT) in Abi Guzar area and received an electric shock. The next time he opened his eyes was after 20 days and his life had changed forever. His right arm (mid-arm) had been amputated and was lay in SKIMS hospital for two months.

Presently, Yasin is working in the revenue section of PDD where he has to do work related to computers and banks. Left with only one arm he is no more capable of working in field. “If I am living it is all because of my wife. I am 34 only, maybe I should have gone for an artificial limb but the compensation I got through Labor Court, I have saved that money for my two daughters who are 11 and seven years old,” says Yasin helplessly. His elder daughter was studying in a reputed private school but now both his daughters are enrolled in a government school.

Yasin has gone door to door for his regularization and once he went to the Civil Secretariat where to his surprise an officer had told him ‘you are not eligible for any compensation because as a daily wager you cannot get ex-gratia relief and you are supposed to work on ground only’. But he says, “our seniors sometimes blackmail us to climb on the electricity poles less they will mark us absent from duty”. As per older laws no ex-gratia relief was given to daily wagers in case of accidents but now a new law, J&K Electricity Act has been passed in 2011 according to which a daily-wager on duty will be given one lakh rupees compensation in case of accident which leaves him handicapped and rupees three lakhs if the person dies on duty. And in case of regular employees the compensation varies from one to five lakh rupees besides benefits under SRO 43.

Other daily-wagers say the PDD should provide some kind of safety for them to minimize the rate of accidents. Since 1994, there have been 160 deaths and 75 have been differently disabled. No compensation was paid to the families of most of those who died on work.

Accepting all allegations of the daily-wagers, Shabir Ahmad Khan, Minister of  State for power says, “They are going to regularize daily-wagers as per the vacancies available in the department by 31st March 2012 and in the meantime, they will release all the pending salaries of these daily-wagers”. He adds,“ No injustice will be done to any worker as they are the ground strength of the department”.

Mohammed Amin Dar, 28, eldest son of the family was excited when he was enrolled in PDD as a need-based worker in 2002. Need-based workers have to work for seven years to become daily-wagers. He was a ground worker but once on duty in Gole market area he was asked by his senior officer to work on a transmission line but then another JE came and accidentally switched on the board and Amin was electrocuted. He has undergone five surgeries, in grafting he had got 200 stitches and doctors have told him that he has 25 per cent chances of saving his hand after spending more than two lakh rupees on treatment.

It was Amin’s financial problems that landed him in PDD but when he got electrocuted his senior officers gave him just 11,000 rupees for treatment. Officers had promised him help and in turn asked not to register an FIR, but after that he never saw any of his officers again.

In more than 20 cases need-based workers got electrocuted, many of them died and the rest were disabled.

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