Shillong, July 24: Aggrieved candidates, who are yet to be appointed as jugali, on Monday began their indefinite strike by not attending work, in order to pressurize the MeECL to issue appointment letters to them.
The candidates, who have been declared successful by the Meghalaya Energy Corporation Limited (MeECL) last year for filling up 772 jugali posts, also include those already appointed as casual jugali for many years.
As part of the strike, these casual jugalis resorted to cease work which has to a great extent paralyzed the functioning of hundreds of sub-stations spread across the Khasi, Jaintia and Garo Hills region of the state.
After hundreds of the candidates joined strike at around 10am infront of the gate of the MeECL, the chairman and managing director (CMD), P.S. Thangkhiew invited few members of the protestors for discussion.
The delegation was accompanied by KHNAM state youth wing president Thomas Passah, who have been in the forefront supporting the cause of the candidates by launching a series of agitations since last year.
Passah told reporters after the meeting, that the CMD has given the delegation an assurance that though the validity of the merit list would expire on August 2, the validity would be extended by another months.
So far the MeECL in a phase manner has appointed 306 candidates whereas a total of 466 are yet to get appointment letters, which compelled them to agitate.
“He (Thangkhiew) also verbally assured that the MeECL would complete the appointment of candidates under the second phase by the month of August,” Passah said.
He however said that the delegation has demanded that such promises should come in black and white.
“We cannot afford to fall into the same old trap due to sweet verbal assurances given by the MeECL in the past,” Passah said adding “If the MeECL agrees to give us in writing, we may consider calling off our indefinite strike from Tuesday.”
He however said that since there was no reply from the CMD on this, the Jugalis have decided to continue with the strike.
Pointing out to an RTI report which indicated a total of 477 vacancy posts of jugali out of the 1073 sanctioned posts in the MeECL, he said that there was no reason for the MeECL to deny these candidates their rights to get the appointment.
Meanwhile, one of the candidates Romeo (Mul) Niangti has today filed a petition against the delay of the MeECL to appoint all the 466 remaining qualified candidates before the Meghalaya High Court for its necessary intervention into the matter.