GUWAHATI: The Assam government will soon implement a Bill which will make it mandatory for state government employees to take care of their parents. Failure will result in deduction from salary to be used for their parents' welfare.
Speaking at a programme in Guwahati on Saturday, the state's Finance and Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said employees found not taking care of their parents would be penalized by way of deduction from their pay.
The state government is miffed over a recent incident in upper Assam's Sivasagar town where an elderly couple, Rajani Khargharia and wife Rubi, committed suicide as they were neglected by their son and daughter-in-law. The son works with Oil and Natural Gas Commission while the daughter-in-law is a school teacher. The Assam Employees' Parents Responsibility and Norms for Accountability and Monitoring Bill 2017 or the Assam Employees' PRANAM Bill, which was passed last year, links geriatric care to employees' pay.
This is the first of its kind in the country. Under it, around 10-15 per cent would be deducted from the salary of an employee not performing filial duties and transferred to the bank account of parents. Last year, the state Cabinet had also approved the two-child Assam State Population Policy.
The Minister said once it became a law, government employees with more than two children would be dismissed from service. This will not, however, cover those who already have more than two children. The state government is seeking amendment to the Representation of the People Act so that the lawmakers in the state could be brought under the ambit of the two-child policy.
"The two-child norm will be proposed as the yardstick for any contestant to the state legislature. In case any MLA flouts the family planning norms, he or she may be disqualified from his or her membership and debarred from contesting polls in future," The Minister had said last year.