Son is dead, father is still not paid

Chandan had warned the Government that he would immolate himself on Independence Day to draw attention to his family’s plight. He had to drop out of his BA degree course because, as he told The Indian Express in hospital, ‘‘Our situation at home is terrible.’’ His mother died of cancer some years ago because the family couldn’t afford her treatment, he had said.

‘‘I tried so hard to stop him, but he wouldn’t listen. He kept saying, I have to do this. I could do nothing. He was a very sensitive boy,’’ said his father. ‘‘My son wrote to everybody in the Government, to the Chief Minister, to ministers and bureaucrats, asking them to pay my salary. Nobody listened to us.’’

Over 700 other employees in Bhattacharya’s organisation haven’t been paid their salaries. They are among Bihar’s employed but unpaid professionals who haven’t been given what is legitimately theirs for months, in some cases, years. Only 3,000 of 35,000 employees of state-run boards and corporations get paid on time, according to R N Thakur, general secretary of the All India Central Council of Trade Unions.

Seven thousand Bihar State Road Transport Corporation employees have been getting only half their salaries for the past six years. Ten thousand Bihar University teachers were paid part salaries two months ago after a six-month wait. Khadi Board employees get paid every four months. ‘‘If the Government doesn’t do something fast, there are many others who will kill themselves in this fashion. Families are starving and the Government isn’t doing anything,’’ said Parijot Bhattacharya.

‘‘People came to the hospital to see my son, they made false promises, they left. Power Minister Shakeel Ahmed Khan assured my son that the Government would do something. It was all for show.’’