All work, no pay: 1570 census workers stare at black Diwali

Enumerators have been running pillar to post to get paid for their hard work

As the Maratha community in the state cries for reservation, around 1,570 enumerators in Mira Bhayandar who been waiting to receive honorarium for the socio-economic and caste based census are staring at a ‘Black Diwali’ for the third consecutive year.

The Mira Bhayandar Municipal Corporation (MBMC) had deployed hundreds of enumerators and supervisors, most of them private and municipal sch-ool teachers, to carry out head counts in the region for the census launched in 2011.

After being paid a fraction of the dues, they were once again roped in for conducting a census of the Maratha community in 2014. Since then the enumerators have been running pillar to post to get paid for their hard work. Irate over the official apathy, the census workers have now threatened to observe a Black Diwali and stage protests outside the office of the civic chief. “We have worked so hard to complete the census work in delegated blocks. Do we deserve such treatment from authorities,” questioned an enumerator, Sonal Gosalia.

Attributing the hitch to the delay in procuring funds from government authorities, nodal officer for census operations, Vijay Patil said, “It is true that dues of around 1570 enumerators amounting Rs 44 lakh for socio-economic and caste base census had remained pending. However, we have received funds and process was on to transfer the same into the bank accounts of the census staff whose list has been sought from concerned wards to clear dues before Diwali.”

The civic administration, however, failed to clarify the status and schedule of payments towards remuneration of work for the Maratha census.