Sivasagar Municipal Board worker sans salary commits suicide

A Correspondent

JOYSAGAR, July 20: The common employees and workers including hundreds of muster roll workers of the Sivasagar Municipal Board are not getting their regular monthly salaries for about 13 months and thereby most of the workers of this local body are in the midst of severe financial crisis. One Ghana Kanta Gogoi (52), a worker of the Phukan Nagar Water Supply Project of the SMB has committed suicide on Thursday night. His body was recovered near his house in Mothiya Chiga village of Sivasagar. The body was found hanging from a tree and local people spotted it on Friday morning. Later, Joysagar Police arrived on the spot and recovered the body and sent it for post mortem in Joysagar Civil Hospital. Ghanakanta has left behind his wife, one son and three daughters.

SMB Employees Union president Hemanta Changmai today alleged that Water Supply Project worker Ghana Kanta Gogoi (52) finally chose the extreme path due to the financial crisis that has hit the day-to-day budget of his family. Besides, Ghanakanta was unable to afford the regular needs of his children. He was even unable to buy medicines. The SMB union president also alleged that many more workers of this local body are presently being hit by financial problems with the SMB authorities not responding to the problems of the workers. The union president also added that SMB has been collecting about Rs 60-80 lakh per month as revenue but it fakes fund shortage at the time of releasing salaries of employees, adding that there was enough ground to suspect misappropriation of SMB funds by the authority.