THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Lok Sabha election results are out but the officials deployed on election duty, who were picked up from various departments, are yet to get the remuneration for the duty even after the Election Commission has transferred the funds to the respective district collectorates.
It is alleged that while only partial remuneration was given to sectoral officers the others were left out. The officials who were part of Anti-Defacement Squads, Flying Squads and teams for monitoring the implementation of Model Code of Conduct are yet to get the remuneration even after the results have come out, the officials said.
The sectoral officers, who had to get Rs.6000 as remuneration, were paid Rs 4000 while those had to get Rs.4000 were given Rs.3,000, highly placed sources said. They alleged that the officials of the collectorates had diverted the funds earmarked for the officials who had been on election duty. Alleging apathy on the part of the Collectorate officials, Kerala Revenue Department Staff Association president K Sreekantan Nair said that the situation was the same in majority of the collectorates.
‘’Even after the election results have come out, the majority of the officials who were on election duty are yet to get the remuneration. Though funds have been transferred, the officials who had been deployed for the duty are not yet paid,’’ he said. He said that Returning Officers in some places had disbursed the funds. ‘’If there were no funds, it can be understood. But here, even after the funds were released, the officials had to wait,’’ he said. There are also allegations that the persons who were appointed directly from the collectorates had been given the remuneration while those appointed by the returning officers were yet to get it. Raising the same allegations, Kerala NGO Sangh T’Puram district secretary Sajeev Kumar said that complaints were reported from almost all the districts. ‘’This is the first time that a delay has come. Though we have asked the authorities many times to release the remuneration, the officials have not heeded to it,’’ he said.
The officials who were in connection with the election works at the T’Puram collectorate said that there was no such issue and the remuneration was being given in a time-bound manner. All Assistant Returning Officers have been asked to provide the remuneration at the earliest, they said.