VIRUDHUNAGAR
A Tahsildar, R. Ramanathan, has sent a WhatsApp message criticising Collector A. Sivagnanam for ‘failure in disbursing salary to some 30 employees of Virudhunagar and Sattur Units for Land Acquisition meant for Madurai-Thoothukudi railway track doubling project.
In his Deepavali greeting to the Collector, Mr. Ramanathan held the Collector responsible for not taking adequate efforts to disburse their salary for 10 months since January despite the Centre having sanctioned huge funds to the State in December 2018.
However, Virudhunagar District Revenue Officer K. Udhayakumar denied the charge, saying the salary had been issued till April for the staff attached to the Sattur unit and till May for those attached to the Virudhunagar unit.
“Despite a long process and administrative delay in sanctioning the funds to the units, the district administration has managed to disburse their salary through other resources,” he told The Hindu .
However, in his message to the Collector, which is being circulated among functionaries of various government officials’ and employees’ associations, Mr. Ramanathan said the lackadaisical attitude of the district administration had made the 30 families suffer for long without salary.
Among the employee are two Tahsildars, some Revenue Inspectors, Assistants, Computer Operators and Surveyors.
“Even the salary given to us has only been the net salary and not with deductions like Government Provident Fund contribution,” one of the officials employed in a unit said. The Tahsildar questioned who would compensate the loss of interest on their contribution due to non-payment of GPF for 10 months.
Stating that the Virudhunagar unit could not even pay rent for its office building and had got loans for taking hundreds of photocopies, Mr. Ramanathan said the officials were made to cut a sorry figure before the landlord and the photocopying shop owner.
“Even travel allowance, electricity bills and water charges have been paid by the employees themselves,” he said in his long message.
Revenue officials said Mr. Ramanathan, who was the district president of Tamil Nadu Revenue Officers’ Association, was one among the several government employees who were placed under suspension in January following their participation in the strike called by JACTTO-GEO.
The DRO expressed hope that very soon the salary of the employees would be sanctioned by the government.
