PMT bonus issue lands in State Govt court

Agarwal said although he was in favour of an earlier proposal of giving a festival allowance of Rs 1600 and salary amount as bonus, he will now follow the State directives of not granting any bonus to the employees of any State institution which owes arrears to it.

Agarwal said that the stand taken by the elected members was ambiguous as during a meeting of the party members and the PMT employees’ unions, it had been agreed that the employees would be paid a festival allowance of Rs 1600 and an amount equal to the salary as festival bonus. The employees too had consented to the proposal.

The standing committee on Tuesday however approved a resolution giving a festival amount of Rs 2700 to the PMT and the school board employees, along with the PMC employees.

Agarwal said the 1700-odd employees of the school board will receive bonus of amount equal to the salary and an additional Rs 2750. The payments for the school board employees and the PMC employees will begin from October 5.

Agarwal expressed surprise that the corporators were creating an impression that the administration was opposed to payment of bonus to the PMT employees. While the PMT owes tax arrears of around Rs 5 crore to the State Government, Agarwal said he would follow the State directives that bonus could not be paid to the employees of such organisations.

Party leader Ulhas Dhole Patil, leader of the house Chandrakant Chajed, corporators Ajit Apte, Ujwal Keskar, Vijay Mohite, Suhas Kulkarni, Ramdas Pawar, and Ajit Darekar were in favour of a festival amount of Rs 2700.

A major confrontation between the employees’ union of the PMT and the civic administration is on the cards on the issue of the payment of bonus amount.

Reacting to the decision of the civic general body, Bharatiya Kamgar Sena leader Nana Balkavade said that the employees would have no option but to undertake an agitation if the civic administration denied bonus to the employees. He said that several state departments which were running in losses were disbursing bonus to their employees.

He charged that the PMT was running into losses because of the mismanagement by the civic administration. The employees should not suffer unnecessarily, he said. A decision on the future course of action was likely within a couple of days after a meeting of the employees, he added.

The INTUC union said that it would be holding a meeting tomorrow to decide its future course of action on the bonus issue.