Author: Nirmala Ganapathy
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: November 23, 2002
URL: http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=13575
Introduction: Prodded by court,
govt prepares list of 32 suicides by state staff, countless others wait
for paycheque
Indian Express broke the story,
the Bihar government today admitted for the first time that 32 employees
working in the corporations have died due to non-payment of salary. The
total is estimated at many more.
A list prepared by the home department,
responding to a notice issued to it by the Supreme Court, admitted that
these people died due to non-payment of salaries which resulted in their
source of incomes being cut off or because of suicide due of non-payment
of salaries.
It says those who died included
23 employees of the Bihar State Small Scale Industries Development Board
and nine employees, or wives of employees, of the Bihar State Handloom
and Handicrafts Corporation.
The list does not, however, include
the suicide on August 15 of Chandan Bhattacharya, whose father Paritosh
hadn't been paid for nine years.
The court had, on September 23,
issued notice to the Bihar government on a public interest litigation (PIL)
filed by advocate Kapila Hingorani alleging that non- payment of salaries
to government employees had led to the death of people.
The petition quoted figures to show
that 88,572 employees engaged with 49 ailing public undertakings were totally
dependent on the state government for their salaries. ''The situation is
equally bad in schools, madrasas and colleges, where nearly 1.5 lakh teaching
and non-teaching employees of unaided schools and colleges face a similar
fate,'', it had said.
The petition also quoted the ''leader
of Opposition in the Bihar Assembly'' as saying that over 1000 employees
had died due to lack of salary for a period ranging from four months to
94 months.
Today's list released by the government
contains details of 49 corporations, the number of total employees, the
last date salaries were paid and the number of people who died because
their only source of income was cut off.
It shows that employees of around
15 corporations and boards haven't been paid their salaries since 1994.
R.N. Thakur, general secretary of
the All-India Central Council of Trade Unions, said: ''We have received
information that recently also around three people have died because they
have no source of income.
Three have died in the Patna Municipal
Corporation and Devender Prasad Singh a conductor of the Bihar State Transport
Corporation at Biharsahrif died recently.''
He also said that the wife of Ramanand
Prasad, general secretary of the Bihar State Agro-Industries Board was
also ailing and he didn't have money for her treatment. ''She is on her
deathbed,'' he said.
Trade union estimates say only 3,000
of the 35,000 employees of the various boards and corporation are getting
their pay regularly. Only six to seven corporations are running properly,
the rest have more or less stopped functioning.
