New Delhi, April 3 Supreme Court employees, except class IV employees, donated their salaries to form a corpus of Rs 1.06 crore to contribute to PM Citizens' Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situation (PM CARES) fund to provide relief to the poor and destitute patients in need of food and shelter, as the country fights the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to a circular issued by the apex court all gazetted officers will contribute three days' salary, the non-gazetted employees will give two days' salary while all group C non-clerical employees would donate one day's salary to the PM-CARES fund. "At a time when coronavirus is posing severe health and economic problems for our country, it is imperative to contribute by donating generously for the cause of humanity. The majority of the officers/officials have already expressed their desire to contribute for this noble cause", said the circular.
The total donation received from the employees was Rs 1,00,61,989. Earlier, Supreme Court judges had also contributed Rs 50,000 each to PM-CARES Fund. Justice N V Ramana, who is scheduled to become Chief Justice in April 2021, had contributed Rs one lakh to PM-Cares Fund, also Rs one lakh each to similar funds managed by chief ministers of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.
Justice S Ravindra Bhat had contributed food packets to migrant workers stranded at the border of the capital after the three-week lockdown was announced last week. On Delhi's borders, a major humanitarian situation emerged as migrant workers from the city began walking, in the absence of public transport, to their native villages. Later, Centre and state governments had to mobilize resources to provide food, shelter and other essentials to these workers.
( With inputs from IANS )