Sugar factory workers cry foul as Agriculture Dept fails to pay them ex-gratia
Team Herald
PONDA: The confirmed employees of the Sanjeevani Sugar Factory have slammed the government for not releasing their ex-gratia payments for Ganesh Chaturthi, and have called on Chief Minister Pramod Sawant and Agriculture Minister Ravi Naik to resolve the issue.
The factory at Dharbandora has a total of around 181 employees, of which 100 are confirmed staff. The ex-gratia has been sanctioned only for the 80-odd contract workers, this year.
Earlier, the government used to pay ex gratia to contract as well as confirmed employees. However, on August 29, we received a notification from the Director of Agriculture that ex gratia will be paid only to contract workers. There was no mention of the payment to the 100 confirmed employees,” said a confirmed worker at the factory.
They further said that for the past 48 years, the ex-gratia was released to both confirmed and contracted staff of the Sanjivani Sugar Factory as per the Maharashtra Sugar Wage Board, as a perk for low-salaried workers, to be able to celebrate Ganesh Chaturthi.
Pointing out that all workers, whether confirmed or contracted, had received the payout for the past three years, the staff wondered why the Agriculture Department had suddenly begun to differentiate between the two groups this year, and failed to release their payments, despite the fact that the State Finance Department had sanctioned the allowance for all employees.
