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Rabri Denial Devi admits: they died because they weren't paid

Rabri Denial Devi admits: they died because they weren't paid

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.
 


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