Work came to a halt at all 544 Sewa Kendras across Punjab from Thursday afternoon as operators launched a strike to protest heavy penalties of up to Rs 1.5 lakh imposed on them, leaving people unable to access Aadhaar and other key citizen services, The Punjab Standard reported. PunjaBE News also reported that operations at the 544 centres came to a standstill on Thursday afternoon over what operators described as excessive and unfair penalties for service-related errors.

Source: The Punjab Standard

Sewa Kendra Employees Union state president Jaswinder Singh Gill said departments and companies linked to the services were fining operators heavily for minor errors or technical glitches in Aadhaar and other citizen services. He called the penalties inhuman and said they had pushed staff into deep financial trouble, according to both reports.

Fined Rs 1 lakh to Rs 1.5 lakh 'without any fair process'

Jaswinder Saini, the union's Pathankot district president, who led the protest at the Malikpur Sewa Kendra, said operators were being fined anywhere between Rs 1 lakh and Rs 1.5 lakh without any fair process. With fines this heavy, he said, running the centres was becoming impossible.

Gill said the union had been raising its problems with the Punjab government, the Department of Governance Reforms and the companies concerned for a long time, but its demands kept being ignored. These are the union's allegations; neither report carried a response from the Punjab government or the Department of Governance Reforms.

What the operators want

The operators want the penalty system stopped at once, all old penalties cancelled and a permanent resolution of their grievances. They said the strike would continue until Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann intervenes personally, reviews the penalty system and provides relief.

Gill said the union's state-level meeting on Thursday evening would decide the next course of action. The Punjab Standard described this as the second Sewa Kendra strike this year.