Vijayawada: Salary delay troubles contract employees

Vijayawada: For over six months now, the contract employees of the AP cultural department, have been waiting for salaries.

The wait has been agonising, and frustrating, since the regular employees have got their salaries. Like them, the retired artistes who had been awarded pensions wait, and struggle to make ends meet.

According to employees of the AP cultural department, they have not received their salaries from November, 2018, while there has been no delay in the regular staff receiving their wages. The contract employees say that they are aghast to see major events organised by the department, spending lakhs of rupees, while they are forced to take austerity measures.

Acontract employees, M. Janardhan Rao, alleged that the teaching and non-teaching staff is not getting salaries at the Sree Ghantasala Venka-teswara Rao Government Music and Dance College since August, 2018. Whenever the contract employees try to complain, they are told that there is a delay in allocation and release of funds by the state government, which is understood to be routed through RBI.

Mr Janardhan Rao said that life has become a Herculean task for him and his colleagues at the college. “All of us are masters in our fields. We can and do teach and train our students wholeheartedly,” he said.

However, college principal K.S. Govinda Rajan said that he was not aware of the salaries contract teaching and non- teaching employees pending. “As far as I know, all salaries have been paid,” Mr Rajan said.

Meanwhile, one of the pensioners, K. Srinivasa Rao, said that he has been in touch with the department staff for the past three months about the pending pension and they too say that they are also not getting salaries.

Mr Srinivasa Rao said, “Youngsters can survive but how about us senior citizens? Pensioners need support in time to fulfil their medical needs.”

He appealed to the government to release at least the pensions with immediate effect.