CHENNAI: Employees and officials of the National Commission of Scheduled Castes in Chennai have not been paid salaries for almost two months, completely jeopardising the functioning of the Commission.
A senior official from the Commission, who sought anonymity to speak about the prevailing salary crisis, said, "Senior investigators, consultant, superintendent, lower division clerk and the data entry operators have all been not paid with most of the field works remaining completely paralysed".
An error made by an employee of the NCSC in Chennai in obtaining the digital signature of the NCSC Director seven months ago has led the entire staff to be completely unpaid since October. A total of eight employees working for the department have not been paid, not even their bonuses since October and most of them underwent a sparkless Deepavali this year due to the salary issue.
The PFMS database introduced by the Central government required the digital signature of the NCSC Director for the salary to be processed. However, the designated staff missed the entire process.
The officials from the Pay and Accounts Committee from New Delhi arrived for imparting training to the employees in the new e payments system six months ago. However, they all left due to the lack of
proper documents.
With the previous director of the Commission leaving on a promotion, the post at present has been held by Dr OA Bedekar as an additional charge and he is also the Director of NCSC at Pune. The Public Financial Management System database introduced by the Central government a year ago was never carried out
according to the procedures by the department and it has led to the confusion.
Coming under the Ministry of Social Empowerment and Justice, the Central government employees are forced to undergo the plight due to the sheer negligence. With travel allowances for field visits yet to be reimbursed, the field visits and the review meeting that occurs in the districts are totally left uncared for.
Speaking to TNIE, L Murugan, Vice-Chairman of NCSC, said the entire issue was never brought to his attention and would be sorted out in the next few days along with the pending payments.
"The Central government cannot deny payment to an employee for his services. Though technological advances carried out by the ministry are welcome, the system of denying payments due to the absence of a digital signature for two months cannot be validated", said Durai Pandian, general-secretary of the Central Government Employees Confederation.