Noida: Non-Payment Of Salaries Forces Animal Shelter Staff To Strike, Over 1000 Animals Left Unfed & Untreated
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The Noida Animal Hospital and Shelter (formerly SPCA Noida) is facing a serious problem as the paravets, and the staff have decided to go on a strike because they have not been paid their salaries since July.

The organisation looks after those animals who have been abandoned by their owners or are in need of treatment. Currently, the shelter has around 700 dogs and 300 cows, bulls, horses and donkeys.

The SPCA Noida has been taken over by the Noida Sector 94 authorities in July, and since then there has been mismanagement of the entire situation. The authorities had promised that they would be taking care of food, medicine and health of the animals who have been given shelter in the house.

In January, the employees of the organisation had raised hue and cry after their salaries were withheld by authority citing complaints received against SPCA regarding functioning of the shelter. In February, the authority released a onetime fund of ₹20 lakh for the shelter.

The contract between the authority and SPCA ended in June this year, due to an order issued by the Uttar Pradesh government in April, 2017. After the scrapping of the contract, all members of the NGO had volunteered to work at the shelter.

Speaking to The Logical Indian, Vibha, who is working with the organisation, said, “Since 9 August, we have not received any medicine. Very recently, a doctor has been appointed who has assured us that we shall get the required medication, but we are not very hopeful.” The money that have been provided by the authorities is meagre and is not sufficient to run the shelter which has been doing the good work for the last 10 years. The total staff is around 54 people which is also enough to tackle the shelter.

The authorities do not allow the shelter home to stock the food for the animals and only provide them with food for four days. This becomes a problem for the staff if the food does not reach the shelter home in time after four days.

The situation is so bad that the staffs are starving, they have no money for transport or food,” Vibha said.

The organisers have been trying their level best to contact the authorities requesting them to take immediate action but in vain.

They have always been postponing the work whenever we appeal to them for help. Till Friday, we were functioning, but since Monday the workers have denied to work because their salaries have not been processed. Although aggrieved, they have no other choice in front of them,” she added. The authorities reportedly said they have not stalled their salaries but have merely outsourced the work to a different organisation.

The Noida authorities have expressed their desire to make this animal shelter of world-class quality, but their apathy is proving something else altogether,” Vibha sounded angry and hurt as she said this.

The organisers have also been persuading the paravets to look after the most critical cases in the shelter home and are making it a point to feed the young animals. “Even then, around 1000 animals would be left unfed and untreated if this situation goes unheeded,” Vibha said.

We request our community members to call the OSD (NA) at 0120-2422213 and demand immediate action – at least staff salaries for a start.

Please also write to the Noida Authority at [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] & let the subject of your e-mail be: NON-PAYMENT OF STAFF SALARIES FOR 3 (THREE) MONTHS.

A similar case of apathy was noted in Chhattisgarh mass starvation of cows in a shelter run by a BJP leader in Rajpur village of Chhattisgarh’s Durg district.

The Logical Indian condemns the entire episode and urges the concerned authorities to look into the matter and take immediate actions to save the lives of innocent animals.

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Editor : Arunima Bhattacharya Bhattacharya

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