A year on, state’s Home Guards still waiting for dues

Gurminder Singh Grewal

Tribune News Service

Khanna,January 30

As many as 13,355 security personnel of Punjab Home Guards are going through a difficult time, as their previous dues have not been released so far.

On March 11, 2015, the pay scales of home guards were increased to nearly 28,000 per person from 12,000, equal to constable’s salary. After the increment the amount to each home guard rose to 2,33,000 for government.

Nearly, six-months ago the first installment of Rs 58,240 was released to every home guard by government, with the promise of second installment to be paid soon but nothing had been released so far.

If all the dues of Home Guards are added then the state government would have to pay a huge amount in crores.

A number of home guards said that they were performing their duties whole wholeheartedly, but they were being ignored without any reasons. They said that they were paid only one installment of their pending dues and other two installments had not been released.

Several home guards expressed that many of them were sole bread earners of their family and due to unavailability of money they were finding it difficult to feed them. They had demanded immediate dispersal of their dues without any delay.

About this matter, when District Commandant Home Guards Anil Kumar was contacted in this regard he said that they had already sent the bills regarding their dues to the concerned department and nothing was pending with them.

When DIG Home Guard KS Ghuman was contacted in this regard he said there are a total of 13,355 sanctioned count of home guard employees in the state and he admitted that their dues are pending.

He however made it clear that Home Guards were not regular employees of the state and are only volunteers. He said that minimum allowance had been increased equivalent to a constable’s allowance. He assured that these dues will be cleared as soon as possible. The files are in process and their dues will be cleared soon.