RAJBIRAJ, NOVEMBER 19
Teachers and employees working under the Saptari's Chhinnamasta Rural Municipality have been deprived of their salary for the past six months. For want of salary, they have halted their work and begun staging a sit-in on the premises of the local level administrative office.
Teachers from 19 community schools, and staffers of four health posts have launched a sit-in.
Failure to hold the last fiscal year's village assembly meeting has stopped the rural municipality from paying salary to the employees. Rural municipality health coordinator Madaneswor Prasad Chaudhary said that employees were deprived of their salary and people were deprived of the services.
Locals complained that dispute among the people's representatives was behind failure of holding the village assembly.
"Our repeated pleas to them have gone unheeded," locals complained.
Rural municipality's acting administrative officer Mahes Kumar Sharma said that employees of local level, teachers and other staffers were deprived of their salary for the last six months.
Education Coordinator Rajdev Kumar Khang said that non-release of the salary had hampered the classes of thousands of students.
Teachers, health post and municipality staffers have started a sit-in from November 18 putting forth six-point demand which has brought all the services to a halt. Struggle Committee Coordinator Shyam Narayan Das said that they had staged the stern protest after salary was not paid. "How long can we work on empty stomach?" asked Das.
Rural Municipality chair Surya Narayan Mandal, however, claimed that absence of Chief Executive Officer for the past two years had affected the work at the rural municipality.
He said that efforts were under way to find out a solution to the problem.
A version of this article appears in the print on November 20, 2021, of The Himalayan Times.
