Workers face job uncertainty due to lease out of Benaulim hatchery

Workers face job uncertainty due to lease out of Benaulim hatchery
HERALD REPORTER
MARGAO, DEC 25
Employees of the pilot prawn hatchery at Benaulim keep their fingers crossed over their very future as the government has decided to lease out the hatchery to private players.
The 29 employees, many of whom have put in more than 15 years of service, face an uncertain future and have knocked the doors of the government to absorb them in government-run departments.
A delegation of the employees recently called on the Chief Minister Digambar Kamat and appealed to him to protect their jobs by absorbing them in other departments. “My government will not put these employees on the streets. A solution would be found to their demand to absorb them in other departments”, Kamat had told the employees.
The employees, however, maintained that the government has till date not taken any decision to induct them in other departments, apprehending that they may be forced to be at the mercy of the private management once the hatchery is leased out to private players. “Most of us have crossed 40 years and are facing difficulties due to payments every two months under the pretext that we are not working. The staff who have completed 12 years in service and whose ACP is due and is approved in 2006 is still not provided with the same”, they maintained.
The government has decided to lease out the prawn hatchery following zero production for the last four years due to a host of problems plaguing the pilot project.
The CAG report had indicted the fisheries department for its infructuous expenditure on the hatchery, especially on the payment of salaries to the employees.
In fact, the CAG has stated that due to non-production of prawn seeds during the period 2004-09, the staff had remained idle resulting in infructuous expenditure of Rs 2.14 crore. The report had further stated that the government should take early action on the deteriorating situation of the pilot prawn hatchery to avoid any further infructuous expenditure.
The pilot prawn hatchery was set up in 1991 under the United Nation Development Programme and was known for producing good quality seeds along the west coast of India for the first couple of years before a host of constraints such as Supreme Court order, white spot disease etc hit the production capacity, crippling the hatchery.