Photo Courtesy: nenow
Itanagar: Employees at Namdapha National Park and Tiger Reserve are fed up. They served a formal notice to the Conservator of Forests and Field Director in Miao on October 12, demanding six months of missing pay. The staff, working under contingency and Project Tiger categories, have gone without wages from April to September 2026. They are done waiting.
Families are hurting. The workers cannot pay for food, medical bills, children's school fees, cooking gas, or electricity. Local shopkeepers once offered credit, but those lines have dried up. Many employees have turned to predatory loans just to survive. Now, the festive season is here, and they have no money for basic provisions or traditional expenses.
This is a recurring nightmare for the workforce. Employees say they repeatedly battle the Forest Department just to get paid for work already finished. It ruins their morale and dignity. They have now issued a hard deadline: pay the arrears within 10 days. If the department fails to act, workers plan to vacate their camps and start a peaceful, democratic protest.
The staff adopted a firm stance. They declared, "No Pay, No Work", and vowed to stay off the job until their full six months of salary hits their accounts. They sent copies of their memorandum to several key officials, including Arunachal Pradesh Environment, Forests and Climate Change Minister Wangki Lowang, adviser to the Chief Minister Kamlung Mosang, and ministerial adviser Wanglin Lowangdong. The Additional Deputy Commissioner of Miao and other forest department heads also received the ultimatum.
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