Hyderabad: Disbursement of remunerations to imams and muezzins, who received their last remuneration in November 2018, stand disrupted for various reasons.
The Supreme Court in May, 1993 had ordered that the imam remuneration scheme framed by the Central Wakf Council must be implemented by every State Wakf Board. The scheme was never implemented in undivided Andhra Pradesh.
Following a contempt petition filed in the High Court, the then government declared that imams and muezzins would be paid Rs 1,000 remuneration every month.
Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao later raised the amount from Rs 1,000 to Rs 1,500 and again on August 25, 2018, before dissolving the Assembly, enhanced the remuneration to Rs 5,000. Nevertheless, the Wakf Board has not been able to execute the same owing to the model code of conduct and the delay in receiving the requisite funds from the government.
A Wakf Board official said, “New applications for remuneration have been cleared and added. We plan to disburse the pending amounts much before Id.”
