74 employees of BBN Temple Trust to lose jobs

The trust, which runs a degree college besides educational, health and other welfare institutions, has employed nearly 300 people. While persons who have been served notices allege that the same was being done under directions of the Dhumal-led government to make place for BJP sympathisers, Sharma holds the previous Congress government responsible for having continued the services of the employees, who were supposed to have been relieved last year.

The persons facing retrenchment are mostly local youths with jobs in the temple complex and doing other outside work. “None of us falls in the category of daily wagers, who are normally taken on a temporary basis for manning affairs during mela days,” they say and add that there services are being retrenched without reasons.

As in the case of some other decisions of the trust that have raised eyebrows, the move to retrench the employees is likely to snowball into a major controversy.

Former Congress MLA Manjit Dogra alleges that funds to the tune of several lakhs had been diverted from the temple to carry out construction of roads and other works which have no link with the objectives of the trust. There has been increased political interference in the temple’s functioning and works were being allotted to known BJP-RSS activists without inviting tenders or fulfilling formalities, he added.

He further alleged that a known BJP activist facing several criminal cases was being tipped for an engineering job by the temple trust and few other appointments had also been made in a “pick and choose” manner.

Dogra warned that locals would resort to a mass agitation if the notices were not withdrawn and the temple trust continued to work with its pro-BJP bias.