KOCHI: The bottlenecks in the integration process at Ernakualm Government Medical College have hit the distribution of salary to 900 odd staff at the medical college even as the second day in the second week of the month arrives on Tuesday. The staff of the medical college once owned by the Co-operative Academy for Professional Education (CAPE) are yet to be technically absorbed into government service after the takeover of the medical college years ago. Staff at the medical college say that because of this their salary distribution has not become regular like in other government departments and government medical colleges.
“A total of 350 permanent staff under CAPE were absorbed into the government service through a government order sometime ago, but the concurrence of PSC to their posting is yet to come because of which they have not been allotted PEN (Permanent Employee Number) which is used in the SPARK software for distribution of salary. This is hitting proper salary distribution,” said an employee of the medical college.
He said that the salary could be distributed by 5th in the past two months. “But every time in the absence of PEN, the accounts staff manning SPARK have to enter all other details of an employee instead of just entering PEN to process the salary. This is consuming considerable time because of which the whole process gets delayed. Moreover, the entries of 350 odd contract and daily wage staff have also to be done in a different manner. Past two months they started it early and this month, it seems they have delayed it. Anyway we are worried as 10th of the month is deadline for payment of loan installment and house rents,” he added. When contacted, EMC principal Dr V K Sreekala said that the salary bills were submitted to the treasury on Saturday and the salary delay could be due to the delay there.
