110 Hours of Democracy. Not One Minute for One Lakh Workers
The J&K Assembly measured its success in sitting-hours. The daily wager measured it in another postponed morning
Despite twenty-two sittings, 110 hours, and eight government bills yielding a budget session productivity second only to Gujarat, one lakh daily wagers woke up Sunday in the exact same legal grey zone they occupied on Monday.
These workers are not abstract policy challenges. They are PHE staff in Sopore, Srinagar & Anantnag who have maintained government water infrastructure for 30 years without a pension. They are forest labourers, part-time sweepers, and civil supply helpers. Specifically, they comprise 69,696 casual labourers, 8,836 daily-rated workers, and 8,534 seasonal employees who have outlasted five governments and two constitutional arrangements. The Chief Minister’s admission that no government has resolved this issue in decades deserved far more scrutiny.
The Assembly's final days were consequential for their omissions. CPI(M)’s M.Y. Tarigami introduced a regularisation bill, but withdrew the instrument of accountability after the Chief Minister pledged a phased resolution within this financial year. PDP’s Waheed-ur-Rehman Parra then moved an identical bill, which was rejected by voice vote. The committee constituted in March 2025 submitted its report four months late; it remains untabled, stalling the only structural mechanism for these workers.
Assurances recorded in Hansard are not law. They are directionally plausible, legally weightless, and unenforceable when political seasons change. The phrase "phased manner" appears twice in the 2026 legislative record. The first instance produced no gazette notification; the second offers optimism only to those who have stopped counting.
The Assembly debated waste-segregation norms and passed a private universities bill with procedural seriousness. Yet, it failed to produce a single enforceable date, published list, or statutory timeline for workers who have served longer than the current government has existed.
The next session is months away. Until then, these individuals will report to government duty every morning without job security, pensions, or the institutional acknowledgement that their decades of service constitute a valid legal claim on the state.
J&K's elected government must now be judged by one metric alone: not sitting tallies, bill counts, or ceremonial farewells, but concrete action. Before the Assembly reconvenes, these workers need a date, a list, and a gazette notification. Everything else is simply political theatre with a functioning microphone.
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