National SC panel seeks Madurai city corporation head's explanation

Madurai: The National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC) vice-chairman L Murugan has decided to summon the Madurai city corporation commissioner DR Aneesh Sekhar within the next 15 days to explain the nonpayment of salaries for sanitation workers working for the local body on contract basis.

Mr. Murugan directed the State director of NCSC, M Mathiazhagan, to summon the commissioner after sanitary workers represented to him at a review meeting with all department officials at the Madurai Collectorate on Saturday. The sanitary workers, recruited through six private agencies and paid through them, complained that the city corporation had not paid their salaries for months now.

The workers requested Murugan to direct the municipal corporation to deposit the salaries dire-ctly into their bank accounts. The corporation commissioner Aneesh Sekhar did not turn up for today's meeting.

Though senior corporation officials informed Mr. Murugan that they have suspended the license of few private agencies, he was not convinced.

Taking note of the pending of cases booked under SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Act in the district, Murugan also directed the district collector Veera Raghava Rao to submit a detailed report on all aspects including number of cases pending within15 days. "District officials have to pay victim compensation fund in 200 cases," Murugan told reporters later.

He also instructed the collector to submit a status report within a month on the reservation policy in admission of students in class 11 and class 12 in government and private schools in the district.

“We are taking steps to examine whether the reservation policy is being followed in the higher education institutions,” to a query about complaints of inadequate representation to Dalits in academics at Madurai-Kamaraj University.

On the frequent complaint about the non-payment of scholarship for Dalit students pursing higher education in the colleges, Murugan said that he would take up the issue with the state government.

During the review meeting, he also instructed all the government departments to pay attention to the welfare of Dalit students who were studying in welfare sch-ools and provided accommodation in hostels.

Besides Mathiazhagan, senior investigators A Inian and S Lister, Collector and chairman of district Vigilance and Monitoring Committee Veera Raghava Rao, SP N Manivannan and B Pandiaraja, member of monitoring committee, participated in the review meeting.

Madurai village gets clean chit

The National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC0 team headed by its vice-chairman L Murugan who visited Maruthankudi village near Madurai on Saturday following which an alleged media report of the prevailing practice of the two-tumbler system in the village, found that the story was not true.

“People including Dalits say that no such discriminatory practice prevails in their village. However, we advised them to live harmoniously,” said a senior member of NCSC to DC.

Earlier, when the rep-ort was broadcast in the news channel on June 26, the then Madurai SP, Vijayendra S Bidari debunked the report producing documentary evidence to prove that the report has no basis. Villagers who were represented as Dalits’ in the visuals belong to intermediate castes, the SP said in his response.