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Traffic wardens not paid for two months

Updated on: 14 December,2011 06:40 AM IST  | 
Kaumudi Gurjar |

Diversion of funds meant for salary leaves 187 traffic wardens in lurch

Traffic wardens not paid for two months

Diversion of funds meant for salary leaves 187 traffic wardens in lurch

For three years Vasant Kaluram Lande has been commuting daily from Bhor to perform his duty as a traffic warden with the Wanawadi traffic division. A few days ago Lande, who is the sole breadwinner in a family of six, did not have the money to buy medicines for his five-year-old daughter.u00a0


No choice: Traffic warden Vasant Kaluram Lande controls traffic on au00a0
city road. Not paid for two months, Lande did not have money to buyu00a0
medicines for his daughter when she was unwell recently.u00a0
Pic/Krunal Gosavi u00a0

The reason he is in financial difficulties is that he has not received his salary for the last two months.u00a0Lande is not the only one. There are 187 traffic wardens who have been working without pay for two months.u00a0They are caught in this situation as a large chunk of the budgetary provisions made for their salary was suddenly diverted towards development purposes without consulting the Security Department.

The Security Department of the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) was allotted Rs 1.5 crore for traffic wardens this year.u00a0But then, Rs 25 lakh of the total allotment was locked for development purposes, forcing the Security Department to stop paying traffic wardens two months ago.

S S Salunkhe, an inspector working with the Jilhau00a0Surakha Rakshak Mandal agency that provides traffic wardens to work with the traffic police, said: "We have been assured that the backlog ofu00a0payment will be clearedu00a0
shortly."u00a0

PMC Chief Security Officer Santosh Pawar said: "We receive funds from the Traffic Planning Department. We were unable to pay the salaries as Rs 25 lakh was locked for some other purpose. But we have made correspondence with other departments andu00a0we believe we will beu00a0able to clear the salary for two months by next week."

The wardens also have other worries; in June representatives of all political parties had demanded discontinuation of the traffic warden schemeu00a0saying wardens were making little difference towards better regulation of traffic in the city.u00a0The representatives also demanded discontinuation of their salary payment, stating it was a complete waste. Still, the warden scheme was not scrapped.

This scheme was first implemented in 2007, when the PMC decided to recruit traffic wardens for a year.u00a0Around 400 wardens from Jilha Suraksha Raskshak Mandal were appointed. u00a0Traffic wardens say irregular payments has already resulted in many of them quitting their job.

Made to slog
THE warden scheme was in a controversy recently when NGOs in the city claimed that wardens were left to control traffic on their own while policemen relaxed in a corner. The then deputy commissioner of police Manoj Patil gave instructions that wardens should not ask people for documents or collect fines on behalf of the traffic police and action would be taken against them if they were found doing these things.


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