Enraged over the new recruitment policy announced by the J&K government, hundreds of casual workers and daily wagers of different departments on Monday started a 48-hour indefinite strike.

These agitating workers are demanding that before starting fresh recruitment of Class-IV employees, all deserving ‘over-aged’ casual workers and daily wagers should be regularised.

“We are not against fresh recruitment of employees but those who have already been serving in different departments for the last 25 years or more should be regularised first,” one of the agitating workers said.

Although the UT administration has announced giving additional five marks to the casual workers or daily wagers in different departments during the selection process, these workers pointed out that they were not in a position to qualify written exams as majority of them were not in touch with the books.

The agitating employees claimed that there were nearly 60,000 temporary employees already working in different departments. These temporary employees include daily wagers and casual workers.