Hyderabad: The Resources Persons (RP) consisting of 60 members, who are contributing their leg work for the Mission for Elimination of Poverty in Municipal Areas (MEPMA) in Secunderabad Cantonment Board (SCB) area, are not getting minimum wages for more than nine years and they do not have a monthly wage system in fact.
They are paid only an honorarium of Rs 1,200 per month by the Self Help Groups (SHGs). The main objective of MEPMA is to the empowerment of the urban poor Women.
RPs said that they are the ones who will be used in the Cantonment for all the surveys which involves door-to-door works and still are low paid. When Cantonment officials were asked about this, Mr J. Rama Krishna, Vice-President of the SCB, said that they will take this issue to higher authorities as this scheme has a state-wide implication.
Mrs Lalitha Kumari, a resource person said that, “We will asked to do all the groundwork by the authorities, but we do not get any payment from the officials. How long can we work without the assurance that we will be paid properly one day. We have given representation to the elected board members of the Cantonment and protested regarding the sane. Since, most of the RPs are from the backward sections, there is a need of stable financial assistance from the government.”
Mrs Y. Sujata, state mission co-ordinator, MEPMA, said, “There is no wage system for the resource persons in the entire project. The Central government did not communicate anything related to the salaries of the RPs.”
