Hyderabad: Some ministers took up the issue of regularising contract workers in Telangana with Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao and urged him to find an amicable solution to this issue. They are worried that if the students’ unrest grows on the Osmania University campus, it would not augur well for the TRS government, which achieved the T-state and political power, banking on the OU students’ unstinted support since 2009.
The government is expected to keep the process of regularisation “on hold” for now and appoint a Cabinet sub-committee to suggest measures on how to go about the contract employees’ issue to pacify the students. The Congress, on Monday, extended its full support to OU students on this issue.
Ministers K.T. Rama Rao, T. Harish Rao, G. Jagadeeshwar Reddy and Nayani Narasimha Reddy have faced the ire of the OU students, who have been obstructing their meetings in the city since the last three days. Some OU women students had even barged into the conference hall in the Secretariat on Friday where Mr Narasimha Reddy, the home minister, was addressing a press conference and obstructed the meeting for some time.
Concerned with the tension on OU campus, Mr Harish Rao and Mr Rama Rao had even roped in the Telangana Employees’ Association leaders to pacify the students, but in vain.
T-employee leaders had issued a public statement urging the students to withdraw their agitations since regularisation of contract employees would not pose any problem for students as there would still be over 1 lakh vacancies that could be filled through recruitment exams after the formation of the Telangana State Public Service Commission. However, it failed to cool tempers as students protested on Monday. The ministers took up the issue with the CM on Monday .
As a damage-control exercise, Mr Rao proposed to keep the Cabinet decision on hold and appoint a Cabinet sub-committee to buy some more time to pacify both students and contract employees. An official announcement in this regard is expected soon.
