The ‘FRIENDS’ single window bill payment counters inside the Saphalyam complex at Palayam has fallen into bad days again, with dwindling staff strength and lack of maintenance work.
But customers still flock here, only to be greeted by a broken down token system and several vacant counters, due to lack of new appointments.
The strength of employees has fallen from around 60 a decade back to 25 a few months ago, to 14 now, according to the employees here.
No replacements
“All of the employees here are on deputation from various departments. In the recent past, several employees from here got promotions and transfers. These posts have not been filled and now there is a severe shortage of employees. With the examination season coming up, there will be huge rush which will be hard to manage. In the initial years, replacements for such staff used to come in fast, but in the past 3-4 years, no one has come to replace those who leave,” says an employees.
The token system which lets people sit in the waiting area until their number comes up, without waiting in the queue, has also stopped working.
Repaired
It was repaired and worked for a brief period following a report in The Hindu in September last year.
“The electricity bills are another issue. Last week, KSEB employees came here to cut the connection as the bills were unpaid. Only after many requests to the Kerala State IT mission that funds were released for the electricty bill of the centre,” says an employee.
No maintenance work has been done in the past many months.
Out of the six air-conditioners, only one is working.
Half of the tube lights are not working.
“One can see how the government is progressively trying to stifle this centre and shut it down,” says an employee.
The plight of the six Kudumbasree workers, who work as office assistants here, is sad as they have not been paid wages in the past two months.
FRIENDS counters across the State, the employees say, have been facing neglect from the government which has plans to close it down and promote Akshaya centres instead.
Govt. trying to promote Akshaya centres, allege staff
Out of six air-conditioners, only one is working
