Team Herald
PONDA: The Ponda Bal Rath employees on Monday in a memorandum to the Chief Minister demanded one year’s salary.
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General Secretary of United Bal Rath Employees Association Shivkumar Naik speaking to Herald said that they only get 10 months’ salary and the months of April and May are excluded.
He further said, “Around 30 per cent employees did not got salary for the months of January, February, March and June and demanded to clear the June and July salary along with pending dues before the Ganesh Chaturthi.
Shivkumar said, “Around 844 Bal Rath bus drivers and attendants’ families are suffering from financial crunch as they didn’t get salary for the month of April and May. During the lockdown period their situation worsened with no source of income. The drivers and attendants are providing services to the school students by transporting them from home to school and back.”
“The Education Department in July issued circular to management of schools to clear the June salary but we are not paid yet. The school management says they have not received the fund from government to clear the salary. Last salary we received was in March thereafter no salary. Only two per cent schools managements paid salaries to their driver and attendants of Bal Rath for June but 98 per cent are not paid. The government should release fund for clearing our salary,” said Shivkumar.
He said, “Like teachers and students, we too are stakeholders in education and so the government should have sympathy to our demand. It has been now several years there is no much hike to our salary. While a driver gets salary of Rs 11,000 per month and an attendant gets Rs 5,500 per month which is not sufficient to feed for family.”
“There are around 844 employees working on 422 Bal Rath 422 buses that are utilised by 326 schools in Goa. It’s 11 years now we are paid meagre salary which is not sufficient with the present inflation. Our demand is that the government should pay us 12 months’ salary,” he added.
“Since 2016 we have launched an agitation on the issue but were told to withdraw the strike with a promise. Last year in September, we took an appointment with the Chief Minister with help of Art and Culture Minister Govind Gaude, the Chief Minister assured to fulfil our demand but later COVID-19 pandemic hit the nation and State and it remained pending,” he mentioned.
