Community information center (CIC) Operators working in Rural Development Department (RDD) have demanded the regularization of their services in the department.
Talking to The Kashmir Walla, they said that the department has in the past assured them that their service would be regularized ‘but nothing has been done to date in this regard.’
Malik Ashfaq, one of the CIC operators a CIC operator, with Master’s degrees in IT and web developing said, “The government passed cabinet orders in 2014 and 2016 to formulate a proposal for the regularization of the operators but the action is yet to be seen on ground.”
“We have been in service for 17 years and are, finding it hard to look for any other job as most of us have passed upper age limit required for a job,” he said.
In 2004, the government of Jammu and Kashmir recruited 171 CIC operators on open competition conducted by the appointed committees of each district.
“Since our recruitment, we have been working on a meager amount of 10000 per month which equals to nearly 300 rupees per day, which infers that working as a laborer is much more lucrative than working as a CIC operator,” Ishfaq said.
“With the ever-growing inflation, we are finding it hard to make our ends meet on this amount we are getting paid. We request the government for at least an increment as an immediate redressal for our sufferings,” Ashfaq added.
The CIC workers play a very significant role in digitalization of governance on grass root level, “We handle the online work of Panchayats and help the sarpanch to operate e-gram-swaraj and other activities and hence our work holds a significant importance in the digitalization of governance but the government is yet to acknowledge our worth,” Ashfaq said.
The operators have now requested the government to look into their issue and deal with their concerns on a humanitarian basis.
