A PARADOXICAL SITUATION HAS RECENTLY EMERGED in the Indian employment landscape. On one hand, there are traditional bastions of ‘secured employment’ like Tata Consultancy Services (‘TCS’), which recently retrenched around 12,000 employees and halted the on-boarding of over 600 graduate trainees (‘GETs’) due to ‘skill-mismatch’ with AI advances (NITES, a trade union of IT workers also approached labor authorities to protect these retrenchments). On the other hand, in the government sector, the Haryana government recently notified The Haryana Contractual Employment (Security of Service) Act, 2024, to secure contract employment of thousands of contract/ad-hoc/outsource employees of up to 60 years of age under state government organisations.
In essence, the 2024 Act provide for security of employment or ‘secured employment till ordinary age of superannuation i.e 60 years, surety of regular benefits i.e periodical salary hike’ to all ‘secured’ employees who are at par with entry level pay in regular government service along with preferential hike. There are certain pre-requisites like completion of at least five years of service by August 15, 2024, and receipt of 240 working days wages for each completed year by the beneficiary. It will apply to all departments, boards, corporations or authority etc under the Haryana government. The Act has not yet provided for disciplinary procedures and nature for such ‘secured contractual employees’ but in due time it shall be provided. Till now, the object of the Act is ‘to provide security of service to contractual employees’. Now there arise certain inconsistencies and incongruences that require urgent attention.
18/08/2025