As second wave of Covid-19 has disrupted normal life and brought unprecedented challenges for people, a driver of Department of Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs (FCS&CA) has to regularly drive over 56 kilometres to mark his attendance in order to get his salary.
Personal grudges of some senior officers have caused in negligience of his rightfully earned salary. He has appealed before Lieutenant Governor Grievance Cell, Advisor to LG and Secretary of the Department without any success.
Omdutt lives in Pangiri of tehsil Akhnoor and is working as driver from 17 November 2011. After three years, Director FCS&CA transferred Omdutt to the office of Assistant Director (Trade and Stores) CAPD on 26 April 2014 and later to Joint Director Admin on 19 July 2018.
Everything was going as usual for him but General Administration Department (GAD) issued a circular on 24 May 2019 mentioning consolidate workers. Considering GAD circular, FCS&CAJ issued U.O on 2 September 2019 demanding to delete Omdutt’s details from Biometric Attendance in the Machine. Omdutt said that there was a sense of ambiguity in GAD Circular regarding the casual/seasonal workers engaged after 17/3/2015.
He says that provision of that circular could not be applied on him but still department denied him salary and prohibited him from marking Biometric attendance for some time. However, he was allowed to mark biometric attendance later. High Court has also given him a stay after he filed a writ petition but still department refused to release wages from 1 May 2019.
He said that when he asked the Director to release his salary, he forwarded his application to Chief Account Officer (CAO) who again delayed his salary by seeking legal opinion. He alleged that department officials were acquainted with the fact that Central Administrative Tribunal was not listening pleas due to pandemic so they tried to benefit from the situation.
Omdutt is father to two children and his four sisters are also dependent on him. His family is suffering financially without any salary for the last two years. He attends regular office and has also been doing some menial jobs during off-hours to survive. Joint Director FCS&CA Shagun Sharma assured that proper action will be taken.
