A fourth class employee was found running from pillar to post for justice after working for three decades in a Government office. The sorry part is the poor staffer has already written to the Chief Minister in 2006 and Prime Minister in 2007, but failed to get a redressal of his grievances. Even after an order from the Orissa High Court in March, his problems are yet to be heard by the district administration. Consequently, the victim is surviving with PDS rice but that is not sufficient for his four-member family.
Kunja Bihari Pradhan (55), the attendant at District Pressroom, had begun his duty in 1991 as an unpaid watchman in the town hall library. As per his statement, after three months he was asked to produce documents by the DIPRO for regularisation of his job. By the way, he was shifted to Pressroom to work as an attendant. But he neither got salary, nor was his job regularised even after 30 years of duty in the Government office.
However, with request of journalists, Collector Aravind Agarawal in his second tenure in Puri had sanctioned him honorarium of monthly Rs 2,000 from the Red Cross Society. Later, the honorarium was hiked to Rs 3,500 and Rs 4,500 in 2017. But since July last year, the Red Cross has stopped his payment.
Earlier, outgoing Collector Balwant Singh in 2020 had ordered the Red Cross to pay Pradhan a hiked salary to Rs 8,400 per month. Besides, the Orissa High Court on March 26 last had already directed the Collector in support of a hike in the remuneration and implementation of the same within three months.