Dulku at work in a field, 3km from her house at Majhiyan. Picture by Ramen Mondol

Balurghat, Aug. 24: The wives of two government employees who died in harness have been going without pension for the past five and seven years respectively, and have been forced to eke out a living as day labourers.

The women are entitled to monthly pensions of Rs 4,000, administrative sources said. “But we earn Rs 1,000 per month by working in others’ fields and that, too, only if we keep well. Health problems related to old age are our greatest impediments. In some months we have to make do with Rs 500,” said Dulku Hembrom, who lost her husband Sunil Baske on June 9, 2003.

The husbands of both the women worked as Group D employees at the research centre of North Bengal Agriculture University at Patiram, 16from here.

Sunil died when he was 56 and had four more years of service left. The couple’s two sons were then 12 and 13 years old respectively while the daughter was 16. Dulku managed to marry off the daughter. But the girl lost her husband in four years and came back to her mother’s house in Majhiyan near Patiram with her two children. Her husband was a day labour.

Dulku’s woes did not end here. Both her sons, who earn their living by working in others’ fields, too got married and refused to have anything to do with her. Suren, the elder son said, he did not get work regularly and often his children went without meals.

“Our mother’s problem would have been solved if she had got the pension which is long overdue,” he said.

Suren said the university could have offered a job to any of the two brothers and pension to the mother. “We thought one of us would be employed by the university as our father died in harness. Our repeated appeals to the university authorities went unheeded,” he added.

The plight of Sukurmani Murmu is no different from her neighbour Dulku although one of her sons have got a job.

Sukurmani’s husband, Surjya Murmu died in 2001 when he was 50.

The son who got the job deserted Sukurmani after his marriage. She, on the other hand, is yet to get the pension from the university. The names of these two women do not figure in the old-age pension scheme of the panchayat, as their husbands had government jobs.

The in-charge of the research centre, Ajay Singh, said he had written to the head office at Pundibari urging the authorities to arrange for the pension for these two women on time.

“But we are yet to get any response from the headquarters. I shall send another reminder soon urging the authorities to issue pension to these two women,” Singh said.