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Bhubaneswar, June 22: Many visitors to Regional Museum of Natural History here had to return disappointed Wednesday, too, as contract workers’ strike continued through the morning.
“I came from Balugaon with friends and found the galleries closed. The employees shouldn’t be protesting against irregularities at the expense of visitors. They should instead take such issues up with the management and should inform people in advance before going on a strike,” Ranjit Kumar Sethy, a visitor, said.
Gurukalyan Mohanty, another visitor from Cuttack who had brought children along, also had to return disappointed. “We went to Pathani Samanta Planetarium and then came here. It was disappointing to find the galleries closed,” he said.
The workers had struck work for the second consecutive day Wednesday demanding payment of salaries withheld by the contractor for several months.
Although the strike was called off in the evening based on assurances from the contractor, the gallery attendants did not resume duty and sweepers had to stand-in for them as an ad-hoc arrangement.
Contract workers of RMNH were on a strike since Tuesday alleging that they were not paid since January by the contractor who engaged them.
An team investigated the incident and submitted a report to the Sahid Nagar police. According to sources, the team took statements from contractual workers, scientist in-charge of RMNH Gourav and the contractor Pramod Kumar Naik. They added that former scientist in-charge G Indresh used to clear bills of Pramod although he was known to be withholding salaries of the workers. Indresh could not be contacted for comment.
However, Gourav said he had received several complaints from workers about their pay being withheld. “I joined in September and received complaints that Pramod had been holding the salary of workers for about four months without reason. I warned him several times but he ignored these. Therefore, we stopped clearing his bills since December,” Gourav said.
Payments to the contractor, the scientist in-charge said, “will be cleared once he ensures payment to the workers”.
Sources said Pramod has submitted an apology and assurance in writing that he will clear salary dues of employees in 15 days and will also cover EPF and ESIC damages within the next 30 days.
Gourav later added that Pramod had submitted cheques towards payment of salaries and that “within five days the workers would get their salaries for five months”. The assurance has come as some relief to workers such as Subash Behera.
Subash has been a gallery attendant at RMNH since 2013. “Things were good in the beginning but later the contractor started paying us once in three months. Once we had to complain to the former RMNH in-charge to get things in order. However, he resumed delaying salaries again. Every month he would also cut about Rs4,000 from our salaries as his commission,” Subash said.
According to the worker, the contractor was also not updating “EPF details or issuing ESI cards to workers”.
Sources said several complaints had been raised against Pramod in the past. He had allegedly done the same with workers under him at the Water Resource Department and was even jailed.
Pramod, however, has denied the allegations. “I have done nothing wrong. They are not clearing my bills. I have been working with RMNH since 2013 and there has been no problem. They are conspiring against me,” the contractor said.