Srinagar, Dec 25: Even as the presence of over one lakh daily wagers in Jammu and Kashmir is well known, official figures now clearly show that more than half of them are concentrated in just two departments. The Public Health Engineering and Irrigation & Flood Control (PHE/I&FC) Department and the Power Development Department together account for 52 percent of all registered daily wagers, making them the biggest stakeholders in any future regularisation exercise.
As per the Aadhaar-based biometric identification and skill profiling data compiled across 27 government departments, PHE/I&FC employs 38,585 workers, the highest among all departments. The Power Development Department follows with 13,616 workers. Combined, the two departments employ 52,201 workers, which works out to around 52 percent of the total registered workforce.
The data highlights the heavy dependence of core infrastructure departments on daily wage and casual labour. Water supply, irrigation management and power generation and distribution — particularly in remote and rural areas — continue to rely on a large daily wage workforce to ensure uninterrupted essential services.
Other departments account for significantly smaller shares.
The Education Department has 12,646 registered workers, Forest 8,317, Public Works (R&B) 6,801 and Health and Medical Education 4,868. Several departments, including Information, General Administration, Law and Home, together employ fewer than 300 workers, underlining the uneven distribution of daily wagers across the government.
Category-wise, casual labourers dominate the rolls, numbering 69,696 and forming nearly 70 percent of the registered workforce.
Seasonal labourers and daily-rated or daily-charged employees together form another substantial segment, reflecting the temporary yet recurring nature of employment in many departments.
The concentration of over half the daily wagers in the PHE and Power departments has sharpened the policy focus on these sectors.
Deputy Chief Minister Surinder Choudhary recently said the issue of daily wagers was discussed in a cabinet meeting, with the government committed to their regularisation, albeit in phases.
Referring to earlier initiatives, Choudhary recalled that Omar Abdullah had introduced a regularisation scheme for Power Development Department daily wagers during his previous tenure. He said the present government continues to stand by that commitment, but financial constraints following Jammu and Kashmir’s transition to a Union Territory necessitate a phased approach.