Is the young and so-called dynamic Chief Minister of Assam Sarbananda Sonowal listening? In your state even minimum wages are not being paid to the co-op staff who are employed in Assam State Cooperative Union for years.
The staff of Assam State Cooperative Union are a miserable lot having been forced to work on one-third of the salary of what they were getting till 2013. It is not so that the BJP Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal or for that matter the cooperation minister are not aware of it but they are hardly bothered, grieved women co-op officials of the union.
Triveni Boro joined as computer operator in 2003 on Rs 9000-10000 scale. It was fine till recently but come 2013 and she was forced to accept just Rs 2000 per month as salary-even less than the minimum wages approved by the Centre and States. The story is no different for Niru Borauh or for that matter for Minoti Das. Already in their late 40’s they have nowhere to go and co-op union is treating them shabbily after they have put in life time of service.
Niru’s husband has retired and she has to fund the education of her two children-one doing MBA and another B Tech. Minoti Das is better off as she did not marry and had to just take care of herself. But Rs 2000 is not enough even for one person in these days, she whines.
The bad days for the State Co-op Union started with the idea of Rajiv Gandhi Cooperative University, recalls Kiran Kakati, Chairman of the union. Assam govt led by then Congress CM decided that when the University is coming up there is no need for budgetary allocation for the cooperative union.
While the University has made a mockery of itself with little interest among the students due to its poor infrastructure and paucity of faculty members , the work being done by Union is also coming to a standstill with time, says Kaketi who is also on the Board of the apex national cooperative body NCUI.
The stubbornness of the state govt could be gauged from the fact that even when High Court ordered it to release a fund amounting to Rs 80 lakhs in 2014, the cooperation department officials did not act. Now Kaketi talks of filing a contempt of court case against the concerned officials.
It is NCUI which is supporting us somewhat by giving us some training programmes, says Kakati. He was also full of praise for its President Chandra Pal Singh Yadav who has written several letters to the Assam gov to intervene in the matter but to no avail.
But Kaketi has not lost all hopes yet.” Sarbananda Sonowal is a clear-headed Chief Minister and he is going to bail us out’, he told this correspondent. Kakati himself belongs to the BJP fold and sets great store by his connections.
A simple man to the core Kiran Kakati, however consoles his staff and promises them that good days would return soon.