2 months’ salary due, home guards take to social media

Noida: Several home guards attached with the transport department continue to bear the brunt of an attendance scam that came to light in Gautam Budh Nagar over nine months ago.
A number of such employees have raised concerns over not receiving two months of salary. The home guards have taken to social media to raise their voice against the department.
While nearly 750 home guards have been deployed in the district, around 16 of them alleged that their salaries for October and November 2019 have not been dispensed despite several meetings and letters to the transport officials.
Parveen Ruhela, one of the home guards who was previously deployed at the transport department in Sector 32, said that around 16 home guards had been deployed here from October to November last year.
“Home guards were deployed here in batches of eight personnel. They render their services with the enforcement wing of the department and accompany the ARTOs on the ground. With our repeated requests and a prolonged struggle, the departments like police and administration released our salaries but the transport department is the only department that has not released our salaries so far,” he said.
Satish Kumar, another home guard deployed at the department last year, said that they met the ARTO, Sanjay Mishra, and others multiple times raising their demand. He added that a letter to this effect has also been sent to the ARTO through their district commandant’s head office, but to no avail. He said that a total of around Rs 4 lakh is pending with the department.
Soon after the state was hit by the multi-crore home guard scam, the department had stopped the deployment of the home guards in different departments in Gautam Budh Nagar. However, this was resumed in July but not in the transport department.
“Different departments sent demands for the requirement of services of the home guards. However, the transport department is the only one where deployment was not done despite demand being sent because of non-payment of salary,” he said.
The regional transport department, however, said that the problem was because funds were not being released by the UP transport department headquarters in Lucknow.
ARTO (administration) Arunendra Pandey said that they had sought funds from the headquarters for dispersal of salaries but the same has not been received.