Who really heads Archeology department?

This confusion has led to staff not being paid salaries for the last two months

Employees of the Department of Archaeology, Museums and Heritage, which is headquartered here, have not received their salaries for the past two months because of a reported tussle between the full-time commissioner whose appointment the government revoked and he challenged it in the Karnataka Administrative Tribunal (KAT).

Since the transfer of the previous full-time commissioner, P S Vastrad, the department is being headed by Mysuru City Corporation Commissioner C G Betsurmath who has been given additional charge. He is also the in-charge dean of Chamarajendra Academy of Visual Arts.

On September 14, the Department of Personnel and Administrative Reforms (DPAR) appointed R Gopal commissioner of the archaeology department. He was earlier director of the Karnataka State Archives Department. He assumed his new responsibility on September 18 but the DPAR withdrew his appointment just three days later.

Gopal went to the Karnataka Administrative Tribunal (KAT) challenging the September 21 order. The KAT stayed the order and reinstated him. The KAT is expected to deliver judgment in the case on Monday.

The archaeology department comes under the Department of Kannada and Culture. It has 45 regular staff, 50 home guards and 109 outsourced security guards. According to sources, for releasing staff salaries for the month of September, Gopal signed the pay bill and sent it to the district treasury. But the deputy director of treasuries didn’t pass the bill. He argued that the signature of outgoing in-charge commissioner, Betsurmath, when Gopal took charge, was missing in the pay bill.

The district treasury then sought certification from the higher authority, the secretary of Kannada and Culture department in this case, as to who is the commissioner. As the pay bill of September is pending at the treasury, Gopal hasn’t sent the pay bill for October.

The staff appealed to the secretaries of Kannada and Culture department, the DPAR, Kannada and Culture Minister Umashree and the Governor. But there has been no positive response from anybody.

Officials in the department said on the condition of anonymity that not just the salaries, even overheads had not been cleared. Telephone, power and diesel bills are pending. Telephone and power connections were disconnected but resumed on request, they said.

Some staff members said they faced the salary problem even when Betsurmath was the in-charge commissioner. “He would delay signing of the pay bill for frivolous reasons. Since June, we were getting our salaries on 10th or 15th of every month,” they said.