New Delhi, May 16 (PTI): Over 6,000 employees, including those on contract and outsourced, employed in about 20 departments have been retrenched by the Haryana government in the past year during the coronavirus pandemic, a state employees’ union claimed here on Sunday.

Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar

”On one hand, Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar appeals to the private factory owners not to remove any labourers from jobs during the corona period and on the other, the government itself is removing its workers from employment,” Haryana Sarv Karamchari Sangh president Subhash Lamba alleged in a statement here.

Since the last year, the Haryana government has retrenched 6,408 employees, including on contract and outsourced, from around 20 different departments of the state government, he claimed.

”The biggest victims of retrenchment are low-paid third and fourth-tier employees on outsourcing,” he claimed.

Lamba demanded that Khattar should immediately take back the retrenched employees.

”Several protests are being held by these employees in different areas of Haryana on a regular basis, but the power-drunk BJP-JJP combine government pays no heed to the protesting worker’s demand,” he said. He claimed that even during the pandemic, paramedics out of job are not being accommodated in various hospitals. At many places, the paramedical staff is not being paid salaries on time,’ he alleged.

The departments from which the employees are facing retrenchment included market committee, animal husbandry, forest, teaching, tourism and hospitals, he said.