Home Guards is a voluntary organization: Ymbon

Syllad | The Rising MeghalayaFebruary 26, 2024

Minister in-charge Civil Defence & Home Guards Comingone Ymbon on Monday said Home Guards is a voluntary organization and the engagement of home guards volunteers is purely on a voluntary basis and no home guards volunteer can claim for regularization or permanent retention of service.

Replying to a question raised by VPP MLA of Nongkrem Ardent Basaiawmoit, Ymbon said engagement over a long period of time would not entitle the home guards volunteers to hold a lien on the post and neither would it confer any rights towards temporary or permanent service with the nominating or requisitioning agencies.

He said the Civil Defence & Home Guards department is only a nominating agency of the home guards volunteers engaged by various requisitioning agencies. Moreover, the home guards volunteers are governed by the rules and conditions laid down by the requisitioning agencies. The responsibility for payment of duty allowance/salary to such home guards volunteers lies with the requisitioning agencies which are the principal employer, he said while adding that all matter relating to services of those volunteers such as discontinuation of service, reinstatement, etc, rest at the full discretion of the requisitioning agencies that bear the pay and allowances.

The minister said that the department is trying to find ways and means to address the grievances of the home guards.