New Delhi, Nov 3 (PTI) Civil defence volunteers who were terminated as bus marshals in October 2023 will be redeployed in the next two to four days to assist agencies on anti-pollution drives, Delhi Chief Minister Atishi said on Sunday.
A detailed proposal for their permanent engagement will also be sent for Lieutenant Governor VK Saxena’s approval within a week, she said at a press conference.
The announcements come a day after the lieutenant governor wrote to Atishi, saying he was yet to receive a proposal despite his order to immediately reappoint the civil defence volunteers.
“Of course, you and your party leaders may continue to do politics of taking credit for their reinstatement but any more delay in the welfare of these economically weaker and helpless people is not right in any way,” Saxena had said in his letter.
The services of around 10,000 civil defence volunteers deployed in public buses as marshals were terminated last year over objections raised by the finance and the revenue departments.
Atishi on Sunday said the volunteers were already assigned for implementation of various anti-pollution measures undertaken by different agencies in a meeting last week.
“Their call out will begin in the next two to four days,” she said.
The chief minister also slammed the BJP, saying it should stop its “dirty politics” over the issue.
She claimed the saffron party would also make efforts to block the AAP government’s proposal to the lieutenant governor for the permanent engagement of these civil defence volunteers.
“I want to ask BJP leaders to stop their dirty politics on the bus marshal issue. First, their salaries were stopped in April last year and finally they were removed in October 2023 due to the BJP’s conspiracy,” Atishi alleged.
The BJP’s Delhi unit chief Virendra Sachdeva said no matter how many stories Atishi weaved over the matter, he would hold a protest outside her residence if the chief minister failed to send a proposal for redeployment of the civil defence volunteers by Monday.
“It is strange that Atishi is so agitated by our demand to follow the lieutenant governor’s directive to reinstate the civil defence volunteers and citing examples from ‘Kashmir to Kanyakumari’ to deflect the matter,” Sachdeva said in a statement.
“Still she fails to explain why her government has not reinstated the 10,000 civil defence volunteers from November 1 despite clear orders from the lieutenant governor,” he said.
The civil defence volunteers are temporary workers who receive a daily wage and, due to the Atishi government’s “negligence”, it seems unlikely that they will be reinstated in the next three to four days, the BJP leader added.
Sachdeva also challenged Atishi to name even one BJP-governed state where contract workers were being removed or are facing wage crises.
Atishi had alleged that the BJP was playing “dirty politics” with contract workers in states governed by it while AAP-ruled Punjab was the only state to provide permanent jobs to thousands of sanitation workers and teachers. PTI VIT SZM
This report is auto-generated from PTI news service. ThePrint holds no responsibility for its content.