PUNE, June 8: The employees of at least 726 institutions catering to the needs of spastic and mentally disabled children throughout Maharashtra find themselves in a peculiar fix.

The Directorate of Social Welfare, apparently seems to have turned a blind eye to the desperate pleas of these managements to release salary grants on schedule. As a result, most of the employees are forced to make do without their regular wages for the last three months.

Not only have the managements of some institutions alleged that this is becoming a regular feature, some of them claim that paychecks often arrived sometime in the middle of the month.

Says Alka Somani, a class IV employee of the Centre for Special Education, one of the first institutes begun for spastic children in the city, ``It becomes a difficult job trying to convince our family. Here, we labour for over eight hours, often having little time to relax and at the end of the month, we are left high and dry.''

Another employee Rani Nair explains, ``True, the institute does offer some advance in such times. But when we actually receive our salaries, we have to repay the entire amount back, which again creates a severe financial problem.'' Nair, who has taken a loan from a local co-operative bank for her daughter's marriage has to contend with the repeated reminders from the bank authorities to repay the installments.

According to the president of the trust, Girija Sapre, despite repeated letters to the directorate, little heed was paid by the officials. ``At most times, we have to divert the funds of the trust towards the salaries and therefore find it difficult to introduce well-meaning projects for such children. For instance, the school's workshop with the aim to teach students the art of making files is yet to take off''.

At other institutions too, the problem has become rather acute.

Sandhya Devrukkar, the principal of `Dilasa Kendra' an institution for the handicapped run by Sevasadan affirmed that the salary grants were not released on schedule. The principal of Kamayani Institute for Mentally Handicapped said, the school received salaries for the month of March this month.

The State minister for Social Welfare, Dilip Kamble, when confronted with the issue, sympathised with the problems faced by such schools and assured to look into the matter.

He also questioned the opposition of certain managements to the annual inspections conducted by the Social Welfare directorate.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.