BHUBANESWAR: Group D employees of Special Operations Group (SOG), the anti-Naxal strike force of the State, are a dejected and demoralised lot. Bereft of basic minimum facilities and benefits, the contractual workers in the ranks of follower orderly, ‘dhobi’, barber, cook, sweeper and water carrier are virtually struggling. In contrast, their counterparts in police and security establishments like Special Security Battalion (SSB) of Bhubaneswar-Cuttack Police Commissionerate and India Reserve (IR) Battalion have been regularised and enjoying much higher pay and benefits. According to the contractual workers, as many as 258 of them were recruited in the SOG in four phases since 2008. They have been made to work in the operational areas accompanying the teams in jungles as well in offices and houses of senior officers. They are also being deputed to centres outside the State for long periods. But they are paid a measly sum of ` 4,400 a month each without any extra benefits or allowances. “Even though we are sent to the jungles with the strike teams during operations, no allowance is paid to us. We are not even provided uniforms, shoes, winter clothes or raincoats or even mosquito nets and groundsheets,’’ lamented an employee. Further, they are not allegedly granted leave during illness. In jungles, many invariably are afflicted by malaria but if they do not report for duty for more than five days their wages are cut accordingly, the employees complained. Even though they were put on duty in centres like National Security Guards in Varanasi and Mizoram for long periods, they were not provided with extra allowance or advance wages. Making a fervent plea to Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik as well as the SOG authorities to look into their problems, the employees have appealed for regularisation of jobs and provisioning of better work benefits. They said the SSB of the Commissionerate Police and IR Battalion have recruited 92 and 422 personnel for the same posts but in regular jobs with benefits.
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