Excelsior Correspondent
UDHAMPUR, Mar 3: Referring to the announcement of the Govt to revive the honorarium of VDC members rechristened as VDGs, NPP chairman Harsh Dev Singh sought the release of unpaid honorarium of the said Village Defence Committee members pending for the last 4-5 years.
In a press statement Singh said that the VDCs continued to exist and perform their routine duties but they had been divested of their paltry honorarium for the last five years after detachment of SPOs from the said committees. He said that the assurances for future payments to existing VDCs without settling their past claims would be a grave injustice to those who had been performing their duties during the past years without being compensated.
Pointing towards the constitution of VDCs in 1996, Singh said that the members of the said committees were regularly paid honorarium from the date of such constitution till 2017 after which they were deprived of the same. He said that there used to be three SPOs in all the VDCs numbering none than 4200 and having around 27000 members. The honorarium paid to the VDC SPOs was equally distributed amongst the VDC members as per the prevalent practice. The said practice however, was discontinued in 2017 and the entire honorarium credited into the accounts of SPOs resulting in genuine anger and resentment amongst the members of VDCs.
Lambasting the BJP Govt for discarding the VDC members to languish and yell on roads for their wages for years together, Singh said the nationalist people who rose to the occasion to become protective shield of the people, were used by the Saffron party in its election campaigns for political gains.
“ The VDC members who were placed under BPL and provided ration under AAY were mercilessly divested of the facilities after these were withdrawn by the previous BJP-PDP Government. Their pending wages which have remained unpaid for years should be immediately released”, Harsh Dev said.
Trending Now
E-Paper
Follow our WhatsApp channel