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Open letter to Deputy Speaker Himachal Jagat Negi on siding with private companies, mocking at labor laws
My Dear Jagat Negi Ji,
For quite sometime, certain issues have been agitating my mind, therefore this letter to you. I, also choose to make it public.
You are well aware, under the Parliamentary form of democracy adopted by us, the office of a Speaker and Deputy Speaker of a Legislative Assembly is a honorable position. They are given to those who are not partisan in their conduct. In public discourse, a person holding this high position is expected to be judicious, fair and must direct his conduct clear above any narrow partisan interest.
I do not know what were the compelling circumstances which forced you to side with the Patel Engineering company in an industrial dispute with its workers. This dispute has a background of more than 120 days strike since 17th March, 2016. Remember the genesis of the dispute has a longer history. It goes back to September 2013. You would recall in early 2013, the workers of Patel Engineering had built up courage to demand the enforcement of the law of your govt.
The law of payment of minimum wages declared and notified by your govt, the law to provide earned wages before the 7th day of each month, the law to provide the wages in presence of an officer of the principal employer to be counter signed by him accompanied by a documentary evidence of a wage slip, the law of providing a weekly off, the law of providing the social benefits attached to the Provident Fund Act, the law of providing accommodation and living conditions as per the various provisions of the contract labour (regulation and abolition) Act etc.
Just examine how justice was done with the workers. Instead of directing the company to implement law, the leadership of the workers was terminated from service. The management in order to ensure that the workers do not raise the demands again, terminated Jeet Negi the president of the union, Rajvansh the secretary, Baldev the vice president, Soam Dev an active member of the union along with two other activists. Their only crime was to organise the workers so that the labor laws could be implemented.
I am grateful to the judicial system of this country, those who knocked on its door against this unjust act were provided justice. The labor court ordered in the month of May 2016 that the termination of Jeet Negi, Rajvansh and Baldev was illegal and directed their reinstatement. Soam Dev Negi did not have money to fight a legal battle and after having faced humiliation by the sub-contractors he decided to end his life. He committed suicide on 18th Nov 2013 by jumping into the Satluj river. His body was recovered six months later on 24th April 2014. The painful death of Soam Dev the only earning hand of the family, becomes even more painful when one learns that the cause of his death has not been investigated till date.
I want to know from you, are you the MLA of only the Rich, the Patel’s, the JP’s, the Jindal’s, the contractors etc. How long will the poor have to suffer and die like Soam Dev died.
Is the version of the people correct? They say in order to protect the pecuniary interest of your brother Mohinder Negi who is a big contractor under the Patel Company, you have become totally intoxicated by the ill-gotten money. Is it correct the stone crusher belongs to your brother? Is it correct people have complaint against the illegal mining being done for this stone crusher? Is it correct that he is illegally operating it by violating the condition attached to its operation? You may be correct to state why your brother and relatives are not allowed to make money when the others are doing so.
You and your brother want to treat the police as your personal army. Do you know in an industrial dispute the police cannot take sides, either with the industrialists or with the workers. But you desire that they should stand with the exploiters. Are you not ashamed you ordered a few days back to arrest 95 workers under a false and fabricated case of attempt to murder. Once the workers were in police custody you ordered their home to be raised to the ground by plying of a bulldozer. They have become homeless with all their lifelong savings having been destroyed, their bedding, their clothes, their utensils and all the little savings they had made in their life time, all have been buried under the mud. Even tyrants do not carry out such inhumane acts. The bulldozer has buried their life long earnings, but it cannot burry their history.
I can assure you, you have broken their homes, but you and your government cannot break their courage to fight back the ruthless exploitation. The fight will continue till they get justice.
With Regards
Rakesh Singha
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, Himachal Watcher.
Shimla-In yet another instance, two private bus operators in Shimla city were seen creating a nuisance for the public by jamming the traffic. A reader clicked some pictures at the BCS bust stop in Shimla city on February 19, 2022, at about 8 PM and shared them with us. The reader alleged that two private bus operators, namely ‘Komal’ and ‘Chadda’, indulged in a verbal spat, most probably over their schedule. While the drivers argued, one of the buses remained parked in the middle of the road, choking the traffic. The staff of these two buses indulged in a verbal spat for about 5-10 minutes during which the general public faced a huge inconvenience. The reader has requested the Traffic Police Shimla to take action against such operators and discourage them from adopting such a bullying attitude that they don’t even hesitate to block the entire road.
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If you have relevant issues/complains that you want the people and the government to see and read about, you can publish blogs on Himachal Watcher. Send us your blogs with pictures/videos at editor [at] himachalwatcher [dot]com
Language: Hindi and English
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Sundernagar-Many people visit the Sundernagar lake in Mandi district and litter along the road. Winds carry all those packets and plastic bottles into the lake. This practice of littering is unlawful because it costs millions in clean-up projects. It portrays a bad picture of an area. Littering is a huge threat to the aquatic life too. In my view, the solution is awareness, responsibility, sensibility and concern for nature. We as a society need to play a big role. At least, dustbins should be installed along the lake. Otherwise, the negligence in the present will affect us in near future.
-Blog and Picture By Divya Acharya, Sundernagar
Write and Publish Blog on HW
If you have relevant issues/complains that you want the people and the government to see and read about, you can publish blogs on Himachal Watcher. Send us your blogs with pictures/videos at editor [at] himachalwatcher [dot]com
Language: Hindi and English
Note For Multimedia Files: If you have high resolution images/videos (taken with smartphone/camera), then send us the originals through Google Drive or We Transfer or any other file sharing applications that suits you.
Shimla-A youth from a small town of the Mandi district – Sarkaghat- started as a freelancer and went on to launch his own start-up in 2014. By 2021, the start-up grew into a company that has garnered international clients and also designed and developed websites and web apps for several Departments of the Himachal Pradesh Government.
Netgen IT Solutions Pvt Ltd- a young agile company- has, so far, developed websites for the Department of Information Technology, Women & Child Development, Rope & Rapid Transport Development Corporation, HP Milk Federation Cooperation, and the HP AIDS Control Society.
Besides, it also developed HimSuraksha Abhiyan App (National Health Mission) and the website of the Department of Tourism & Civil Aviation along with a Services Portal.
Further, the website of the Department of Information & Public Relations and the single window system was also developed by NetGen.
Having developed over 2500 websites, Netgen IT Solutions has an imprint of having worked for clients spread over 25 countries in Europe, America, Asia and Australia.
Bootstrapped as a Start-Up on 7th July 2014, the company has evolved to offer a diverse set of services for web, e-commerce and mobile solutions that have enabled Global and Indian business to adapt to a Digital First environment. In seven years, this Shimla-based company has carved out a niche for itself.
The company started with a small team of just four people, and today it employs strong-heeled 25 IT professionals. The skillset of web developers, designers, networking specialists, social media marketers and others is expanding with the growth of the company.
To mark the NetGen Foundation Day, the company hosted a live inter-action of the team members with some clients to understand the need for future technologies and solutions for a fast-changing business environment in the shadow COVID pandemic.
Mr Rajneesh Rana, Founder and Managing Director of the company, is a computer science graduate. Speaking about the company’s journey, Rana’s says, “Stepping out from working as a freelancer at the small township of Sarkhaghat, in Himachal Pradesh, to launching a start-up company, was my first step in entrepreneurship. The company was founded on a shoe-string budget with a small capital outlay. After overcoming the initial hesitancy, we’re on the firmer ground today.”
With the growth in demand for IT Services, the company in the initial year faced manpower shortages. The management took to train and equip freshers in a mentorship program to meet its needs for IT Professionals and also to equip others to find gainful employment elsewhere. Netgen till date has trained over 50 freshers with essential and advanced IT skills. Most of them for the first time in their careers got exposure to the IT Industry.
The company’s IT Technical Team today is professionally equipped to work in 20+ technologies that can be deployed across a vast network of industries.
The Netgen team of IT professionals has expanded the services that the company now provides. A multitude of projects employing creative website design-development; customised software products; e-Commerce solutions; server administration – web security – networking services; mobile application design – development; social media marketing; stand completed.
“There is a growing demand for many other IT and IT-enabled services that the company has successfully delivered for Global and Indian clients,” said Rajneesh.
“Since the breakout of the COVID pandemic, the demand for online services has increased. It created an environment that demands moving things onto digital platform, bringing more opportunities for the IT sector ,” added Rajneesh.
“Take the case of the Government of Himachal Pradesh, India. To secure baseline health data of the over 70 lakh residents in the state and to prepare effective strategies for countering the spread of the pandemic in challenging hilly terrain, the state government needed a simple but effective IT-enabled solution to capture the data as fast as possible,” he said.
“The ‘Him Suraksha Abhiyan’ application designed and developed by NetGen IT Solutions was used by thousands of teams spread under 2300+ sub-centres. In just over a month, the software solution created successfully captured the data of over 68 lakh residents of Himachal Pradesh,” he added.
The 70:30 Percent (%) Global – Domestic revenue stream of Netgen has prepared the company to expand both its export and domestic service portfolios, said Rajneesh.
Mr Ravinder Makhaik, Director of the company says, “growing steadily, Netgen is a debt-free, profit-making company. A healthy mix of domestic and international businesses, with sound financials, gives the company strength to take up more challenging projects. Our portfolio of government projects is making good progress.”
Founded as a 1 lakh authorized capital company and with annual revenues rising at a 25 % compounded annual growth rate, the Netgen Board of Directors has decided to expand the authorized capital of the company to Rs 10 lakh to meet future growth needs.
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