100 MahaMetro employees protest unpaid salary of five months, strike work
(Above) Construction work at Pimpri has now come to a standstill; (below) workers who are on strike
Pushed by transport unit, contractors — HCC and Al Fara’a Infraproject — for the Pimpri to Swargate project promise speedy resolution
Work on the first route of thePune MahaMetro project between Pimpri and Swargate has come to a standstill for a week now as the contracted joint venture — between Hindustan Construction Company (HCC) and Al Fara’a Infraproject (an arm of the UAE-based Al Fara’a Integrated Construction Group) — has not been paying its employees working on the project for the past five months. Incensed, around 100 employees of the joint venture have struck work, declaring that they cannot continue rendering their services for free.
In fact, they’ve taken a stern stand that they will not return to work unless all their dues are cleared, having lost faith in the assurances their employers have been offering and reneging on. The situation has turned critical and is threatening the deadline set forMaharashtra Metro Rail Corporation Ltd (MahaMetro) to complete the work on the route involving nine stations and initiate trial runs by December this year.
About 30 of the disgruntled employees had gathered in front of the makeshift office of MahaMetro at Vallabh Nagar in Pimpri. While their angst was writ all over their countenance, they had been silenced by a gag order from their employers. They were threatened that should they make any negative comment on the joint venture or MahaMetro, they could forget their dues and also their involvement in future projects taken up by the company.
One person working with the engineering team, who did brave sharing a word with Mirror, revealed, “We’ve been working with full dedication to the project but have got very little in return. Whenever we’ve sought answers from the management we’re being heckled to name who is provoking us to raise our voice against the company. They are looking for singular person to go after and persecute. Our number is 100 and all of us are struggling to make ends meet, ensure food on our table. However, people at higher levels seem to be going about their merry life unaffected and unconstrained by such financial bothers.”
Another employee, B Abhijeet piped in, “Ours is a hapless situation. We are running on credit taken from friends and family, some even with interest. We’re now being badgered to pay back. We would like to extend our co-operation to the company but they too need to resolve the financial situation so we get our money. All we’ve been getting are dates that are invariably postponed.”
The employees who have been deprived of their salaries are all working in the execution department, engaged in engineering, plumbing andwelding , as lab technicians, security, or doing traffic monitoring and supervising labourers. While the spokespersons for HCC and Al Fara were unwilling to discuss the cause for disruption in salary payouts, an insider source from the joint venture which bagged the Rs 497-crore deal for Pune Metro in 2017, admitted that the company was experiencing cash inflow issues.
This is not in alignment with the contention of MahaMetro’s general manager (corporate communications) Hemant Sonawane, who insisted, “We have been making payments to them from time to time and there is no outstanding amount remaining from our side.” He, however, admitted that work on the project has been hampered. “It is true that there are some issues going on with the progress in the construction work from their side which is turning to be a little problematic,” he noted.
In defence of MahaMetro, he added, “We are committed in protecting the rights of all our employees irrespective of the position. We are aware of the situation and the employees have approached us regarding the same. After taking note of the situation we have immediately communicated to the company concerned, Al Fara’a which is responsible for making payments to these employees and clearing all their dues.”
In a formal letter sent out by Maha-Metro, the special purpose vehicle has urged the two companies to clear the dues of the workers at the earliest and relieve them of the immense financial stress they are under currently. To Mirror both the spokespersons for HCC and Al Fara’a assured early resolution to the issue. “The matter has been brought to our notice and we along with our partner, Al Fara’a are working towards addressing the matter,” the HCC spokesperson said. Pune project manager for Al Fara’a, Anil Birajdar added, “We are trying our best to clear the payments within this month and working on plans to ensure such a situation does not recur.”
Meanwhile, the clock is ticking and observers fear that a month of this situation will cost MahaMetro dear.
Work on the first route of the
In fact, they’ve taken a stern stand that they will not return to work unless all their dues are cleared, having lost faith in the assurances their employers have been offering and reneging on. The situation has turned critical and is threatening the deadline set for
PIC: SACHIN PHULSUNDAR
About 30 of the disgruntled employees had gathered in front of the makeshift office of MahaMetro at Vallabh Nagar in Pimpri. While their angst was writ all over their countenance, they had been silenced by a gag order from their employers. They were threatened that should they make any negative comment on the joint venture or MahaMetro, they could forget their dues and also their involvement in future projects taken up by the company.
One person working with the engineering team, who did brave sharing a word with Mirror, revealed, “We’ve been working with full dedication to the project but have got very little in return. Whenever we’ve sought answers from the management we’re being heckled to name who is provoking us to raise our voice against the company. They are looking for singular person to go after and persecute. Our number is 100 and all of us are struggling to make ends meet, ensure food on our table. However, people at higher levels seem to be going about their merry life unaffected and unconstrained by such financial bothers.”
Another employee, B Abhijeet piped in, “Ours is a hapless situation. We are running on credit taken from friends and family, some even with interest. We’re now being badgered to pay back. We would like to extend our co-operation to the company but they too need to resolve the financial situation so we get our money. All we’ve been getting are dates that are invariably postponed.”
The employees who have been deprived of their salaries are all working in the execution department, engaged in engineering, plumbing and
This is not in alignment with the contention of MahaMetro’s general manager (corporate communications) Hemant Sonawane, who insisted, “We have been making payments to them from time to time and there is no outstanding amount remaining from our side.” He, however, admitted that work on the project has been hampered. “It is true that there are some issues going on with the progress in the construction work from their side which is turning to be a little problematic,” he noted.
In defence of MahaMetro, he added, “We are committed in protecting the rights of all our employees irrespective of the position. We are aware of the situation and the employees have approached us regarding the same. After taking note of the situation we have immediately communicated to the company concerned, Al Fara’a which is responsible for making payments to these employees and clearing all their dues.”
In a formal letter sent out by Maha-Metro, the special purpose vehicle has urged the two companies to clear the dues of the workers at the earliest and relieve them of the immense financial stress they are under currently. To Mirror both the spokespersons for HCC and Al Fara’a assured early resolution to the issue. “The matter has been brought to our notice and we along with our partner, Al Fara’a are working towards addressing the matter,” the HCC spokesperson said. Pune project manager for Al Fara’a, Anil Birajdar added, “We are trying our best to clear the payments within this month and working on plans to ensure such a situation does not recur.”
Meanwhile, the clock is ticking and observers fear that a month of this situation will cost MahaMetro dear.
We have been making payments to the contractors from time to time. There is no outstanding amount from our side. There are some issues with the progress in work from their side, which is a little problematic
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