ASTC Former Employee Suicide: Department to Extend Support to Deceased Family

Guwahati, October 7, 2019:

Managing Director (MD) of Assam State Transport Corporation (ASTC) Anand Prakash Tiwari has extended his support to Late Anil Chandra Kalita’s family, who committed suicide on Sunday night for not receiving retirement benefits.

62- year-old Anil Chandra Kalita, a resident of Noonmati’s Gopal Nagar was a former employee of the ASTC. Kalita committed suicide after a serious mental breakdown following the non-payment of retirement benefits. He had retired in July 2017 as Upper Divisional Assistant from the ASTC department. Post this he had not received any financial benefit. Due to this, the retired official was unable to bear the higher education expenses of his two children. The family was suffering from a severe financial crunch.

Also Read: Assam: ASTC’s Former Employee Commits Suicide Following Non-payment of Retirement Benefits

Speaking with Inside Northeast, Anand Prakash Tiwari said that the department would extend all the support to Kalita’s. He said that the suicide of the former employee was unfortunate.

While speaking on the lines of outstanding dues of retirement benefits to retired employees of ASTC, Tiwari clarified that the issue is a long pending one. “The issue prevailed from 2008 and we have cleared the dues of the RPF from 2008 to 2014.

However, we are yet to clear the dues from 2014 to date. The Provident Funds from 2013 to 2018 were not deposited as the employees demanded the 6th Pay Commission and the department accepted the demand but no backup plans were made. So the gap widened and the deficit became larger. We are trying to overcome these end number of issues,” he said.

Earlier, in the month of September, two other such suicides were reported - one from Lakhimpur and other from Jorhat.

Also Read: Assam Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma Goes Pandal Hopping in Silchar

It may be mentioned here that ASTC employees have been committing suicide for a decade now. Prior to 2002, a huge number of ASTC officials had committed suicide in different parts of Assam for not receiving their salaries for as long as 12 months.

62- year-old Anil Chandra Kalita’s body has been sent for postmortem and a suicide case has been registered at the Noonmanti Police Station.

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