TEAM HERALD
PANJIM: A few hundreds daily wage employees of the Directorate of Sports and Youth Affairs, have not been paid their salaries for four months. The delay is inexplicable.
The daily wage contract employees at the DSYA, have said that they have waited patiently month after month for their salaries to arrive and that four months without being paid their dues was stretching the limits of their patience. “Does the government really not have any money or is it that the money is not being made available only for us?” a person employed at the DSYA asked.
When contacted, Director of Sports and Youth Affairs said that while he would have to check with his office for the “latest” position, the matter must have been delayed because of a pending approval from the Finance Department.
“As far as I know, the file was sent to the Finance department and was awaiting approval,” he said adding that he would check with his office on Monday the exact details about how many months they have not been paid, as well as the exact number of employees who have had to suffer this fate.
This is however, not the first instance when the government is going laggard at processing payments of its employees especially those who have either just joined, are not permanent employees or are junior.
In earlier instances, the postgraduate doctors who are serving their year of mandatory rural service with the Goa government in health establishments were not paid their stipend for several months. In that instance the shocking response of the Secretariat official was: “What is the problem? They will get their salary.”
Another recurring problem every year is that of newly recruited permanent teachers in aided primary schools receive their salaries sometimes in lumpsum only at the end of the academic year.
