The Directorial General of Home Guard office has failed to give salary to more than 40,000 thousand jawans since September 2019. This is the very force that gives a helping hand to policemen on several occasions like heavy rainfall, floods, elections and festivals.
According to an official, these home guards are now forced to take a loan or borrow money from other people to run their houses. After serving several reminders from the DG home guard’s office to the state government, the latter is yet to take any action on it.
Every year, the state government issues Rs 100 crore to pay honorarium to the home guards. Here it may be noted that the government had increased the wages on August 2019. Hence, this year the honorarium was raised from Rs 300 to Rs 670 per day. An official said that the state government which already owes Rs 137.83 crore to the home guards and at the end of the financial year 2019-2020 the government will have to pay another Rs 140.55 crore.
Elaborating on the same, an official stated, “The proposal to raise the honorarium was sent to the state government by DG Sanjay Pandey. And after the government’s approval, the honorarium of our force was increased from July 2019. But, unfortunately the government has failed to provide the raised honorarium.”
