The wife of a
Kingfisher Airlines (KFA) staff committed suicide citing non-payment of
salaries, bringing home to urban India's cloistered living rooms the brutal
realities of a life without income usually experienced by residents in
drought-stricken Vidarbha or the parched badlands of Kalahandi.
Sushmita Chakraborty,
the 45-year-old wife of Manas Chakraborty, died by her own hands on Thursday at
her home in Dwarka in Delhi, police said. She left behind a note that spoke of
financial distress caused by non-payment of salaries to her husband, a technician
in the airline.
A 20-something flight
engineer, who earns barely Rs 12,000 a month, has been kicked out of his house
thrice in seven months for not paying rent. "I have sent my wife back home
to Kolkata since I couldn't manage with no income and ever-growing dues,"
the engineer said.
Then there is the case
of a captain who is struggling to raise EMIs, school fees and other expenses.
"I have broken every fixed deposit and emptied all my savings," said
the captain. "We don't want March salary we want our dues for the past
seven months. While Mallya seems to have time for cricket, racing and even to spend
in his yacht, he's yet to pay his condolences for this incident,” he alleges.
I read this in newspapers today. While I was lucky not to
experience such apathy by my employers during my tenure, I am clearly observing
an increase in the irresponsible behavior on part of employers and owners. Very
few companies maintain fiscal discipline. The allocation of funds for disbursal
is at random typically tending towards agencies wielding power in the given
ecosystem. Bigger vendors, senior management and bigger bankers exercise their
clout to have their payments made on priority while the smaller, weaker and
junior ones suffer. Like in KFA’s case too, I am sure, many thousand crores
would have been paid to bankers and agencies that had the ability to threaten
and arm-twist the company. KFA would continue to foot the bill for all expenses
incurred by the top management. Not paying on time is not a crime in India.
Employees, small vendors and tiny bankers have no means to get their money.
They can wait or write it off completely.
There isn’t any mandatory and standard accounting practice
that would dictate the priority of payments in a cash crunch situation. I strongly propose that bodies like ICAI, RBI,
ROC, MOF, MOC, SC etc. should intervene at the earliest to bring in such standard.
Employers and business owners must be held accountable if they don’t follow the
disbursement prioritization norms. For example, in a cash crunch situation, the
foremost priority should be employee salaries and payments; next should be the
vendors; then the bankers; then the government; shareholders next and finally
the investments and cash reserves. While observing these priorities, the
First-In-First-Out (FIFO) principle must be adhered to in conjunction with the
contractual commitments.
I am not a Labor Laws fanatic but I strongly feel that
employees and vendors do need protection on certain account. It is the job of
the employer, owner or the chief executive to ensure that the payments are not
delayed. Of all the reforms, this one would boost the economy big time.
I request the Supreme Court or any lawyer therein to pick this issue up as a Public Interest Litigation.
