The workers have raised this demand on multiple occasions, but their salary is yet to come.

More than 50 contractual employees from Panjab University, supported by students from Students For Society (SFS), sat in protest outside the Vice-Chancellors’ office on Tuesday afternoon demanding their wages which have been pending since February.

The workers have raised this demand on multiple occasions, but their salary is yet to come.

The contractual workers who have not been paid yet include 40 plumbers and maintenance staff and around 15 carpenters, some of whom have not received their pay since January, and others since February.

“While officials from PU maintain that they do not owe us our salary, and this issue is between us and our contractors. The contractors claim that their bill has not been cleared by PU so how can they pay us?” said a plumber who was at the protest.

The plumber claims that they were also on multiple occasions told that their contract was only till March and hence they won’t be paid for April and May. “This is happening even though we have been working ever since the lockdown ceased until the present day. They need our service and then they tell us they can’t pay us,” said the plumber, who himself has not received his payment since February.

Insisting that the issue with workers’ wages is between them and their contractors, executive engineer for PU R K Rai said, “We have not cleared the wages till February for most staff, the wages for March are pending because there was some delay due to the lockdown. Furthermore, their contract ended in March but we will try to get them an extension since we haven’t made a new contract yet.”