TIRUCHY: A total of 151 Transport department employees who had to leave after their contracts ended are awaiting salaries from July to December 2018. The employees were working as programmers in different Regional Transport Offices (RTO) in the State.
To help the Transport department in maintaining the Vahansarathi application, the government through a contractor employed 145 computer programmers at 145 Regional Transport Offices (RTO) and four systems analysts at the Transport Commissioner’s office in Chennai. While their contracts ended on December 31, 2018, the government is yet to settle the dues. “It has been eight months since our contracts ended but the government is yet to provide us with our dues till now. How can we run our families without money?” asked a programmer who worked in an RTO office in Chennai.
According to the contracts, a system analyst earned a monthly salary of Rs 8,500, while programmers were paid Rs 4,152 per month. “The total salary for six months is roughly around Rs 25,000. At a time when we are without jobs, the payments which are due would come in handy for our daily needs,” said an employee who worked in an RTO office in Karur.
Another problem they are facing is they are yet to receive formal termination letter,s which means they cannot take up other employment. “In all the companies where I have attended interviews till now, they ask for experience certificate and termination letter. These have not been issued to us,” said a programmer in Tiruchy.
When TNIE contacted the private firm which employed the 151 programmers, officials said, “We are trying to issue certificates to employees who have reached out to us. We have not formally provided certificates to everyone as that would cause us problems in remitting salaries and provident fund. From our side, we are trying to reach the government so salary dues can be paid and certificates issued.” Senior Transport department officials acknowledged the problem and promised they would look into the matter.