Employees of Sri Durga Malleswara Swami Varla Devasthanam are crying foul over the calculation of expenditure on establishment by the State government, as they feel that revised statement of expenses prepared by the authorities is actually aimed at depriving them of the fruits of the Pay Revision Commission (PRC).
The revised statement, according to sources, indicates that the expenditure on salaries would cross 40 per cent of the receipts if the PRC is implemented. However, a statement prepared a couple of months ago pointed out that the establishment expenditure would be only 28 per cent of the receipts even if the PRC benefits were extended to the regular employees. It would touch a maximum of 30 per cent even if all Non Muster Rolls (NMR) employees were included. At present, salaries of secular and religious staff stand at 23 per cent of the ‘assessable income of the temple.'
Revised statement
The Devasthanam higher ups had sent a revised statement of expenses incurred by the temple following a direction from the government last month. The statement included expenses on heads like security and sanitation, the services of which have been outsourced. And, it included the salaries of 20 employees of Special Protection Force (SPF), 76 employees of the OPDSS, a private security agency, 24 Home Guards and 65 sweepers. The temple has a separate head for the sanitation, but it was not shown under the head of ‘establishment', sources say.
The temple receives a gross income of about Rs. 60 crore per annum. Of this, Rs. 22 crore is assessable income, while the remaining is in the form of donations, pooja, sale of prasadam and so on. The assessable income includes hundial and plate collections and proceedings towards sale of tickets. Generally, salaries of employees are charged on assessable income. And, the laid down rules stipulate that it should not cross 30 per cent of the assessable income.
The temple employees, who have been demanding the benefits of the PRC to them, feel that the Government had deliberately included the expenses on heads like sanitation and security which have a separate budget.
As the sanitation, security and the like have been included under expenses, the employees feel that the Government should take the gross income instead of just assessable income. In that case, the expenditure would not be more than 10 per cent of gross income.
The temple employees have been agitating for PRC scales for the last two months.
