2 months on, Chandigarh Sports Dept staff await salary

Deepankar Sharda

Chandigarh, June 9

The UT Administration seems to be in a deep slumber as the UT Sports Department employees, hired through the outsourcing system, have not received their salaries for two months.

This is for the fourth time in one year and the second delay in recent times, when hundreds of employees, who are already hired on nominal salaries, failed to get their dues. Last month, the humiliation faced by these employees was reported in the same columns. Thereafter, the department released their salaries. However, expecting their salaries, which have been pending for two months, the employees were shocked to receive the salary for a month and their provident fund dues. Now, the employees are awaiting salaries for the months of April and May, to which the officials have turned a blind eye.

As per the setup, the (sports) department releases the salaried amount to a designated contractor (service provider), who further disburses the funds to the employees. Earlier, the contractor claimed to not have received timely funds from the department to release the employees’ salaries. However, this time, sources claimed the contractor is yet to be hired by the administration to run the operations, leaving hundreds of employees in a lurch. Last year, the same delay in releasing the salaries occurred twice, in March and September, for different reasons.

The list of affected employees includes security guards, attendants, cleaners, and gardeners, among others, who are already withdrawing a nominal salary to run their livelihoods. As per a letter (dated May 25, 2022), issued by the Superintendent Personnel for the Secretary, Personnel, Chandigarh Administration, the wages of the persons engaged on a contract basis through outsource are to be disbursed by the 7th of every month by the contractor or service provider. “We are hired at nominal salaries. The authorities should have made prior arrangements to accommodate us.

A new contractor was hired in the month of April; however, the company refused to work as they refused to submit the security amount. Thereafter, the process to hire a new contractor has been underway,” claimed a security guard, working at a local sports complex.