24-05-2025
Chandigarh: Protest held against sacking of 7 UT employees over attendance
Employees from the UT administration, municipal corporation and various departments staged a protest in front of the social welfare department office in Sector 17 against the dismissal of seven employees on the grounds of non-compliance with attendance requirements through the AadhaarBAS/AadhaarFaceRD mobile application on personal smartphones.
The dharna was led by Federation of UT Employees and Workers, Chandigarh senior vice-president Rajendra Katoch. Other key leaders present included Harkesh Chand, Sunita Sharma, Naseeb Singh, Toplan, Sukhwinder Singh and Ranjit Singh.
Addressing the protesters, federation's general secretary Gopal Dutt Joshi strongly condemned the termination of seven crèche workers and helpers, alleging that the UT social welfare department officials acted vindictively. He stated, 'First, the workers were merged with the Anganwadi scheme, their salaries were halved, they were placed on honorarium, and all benefits were withdrawn. Now, seven employees have been dismissed on the pretext of not marking attendance via the facial authentication app.'
Speakers at the protest highlighted that approximately 1,317 employees work under the ICDS (Integrated Child Development Services) of the social welfare department. As of now, only about half of these employees are marking their attendance using the said app.
The department had set April 7, 2025, as the deadline for all employees to begin using the app. However, the seven dismissed employees had already started marking their attendance before the deadline. Despite this, they were terminated on April 4, they claimed.
'Surprisingly, while around 125 employees were merely asked to submit explanations for not using the app, and 400–450 employees are still not using it, these seven were singled out and dismissed in haste,' the protesters said. They alleged that the real reason was that these employees had raised a demand for mobile phones and recharge allowances—like provisions made for Anganwadi workers—after complying with the app-based attendance.
The union and federation have submitted memorandums to the concerned authorities demanding that the dismissal orders be revoked, but no positive response has been received so far.
During the protest, a memorandum addressed to the Chandigarh chief secretary was submitted via SDM (Central) Naveen, demanding immediate intervention, cancellation of the dismissal orders, and reinstatement of the affected employees. The protesters issued a warning to the social welfare department, stating that if the dismissals are not revoked, employees from all departments across Chandigarh will observe a work stoppage on June 6, followed by a massive demonstration and a complete strike on July 9, 2025.
