Twenty five Thromde Thuemis from four Class A thromdes have jointly proposed for pay raise to the government. They say if there is no progress in six months, they would resign.
The reasons they said was their workload does not commensurate with the salary they get. They get Nu. 5,000 a month and a mobile voucher allowance of Nu. 500. They say they have been shouldering the responsibilities of the Gup, Mangmi and Chipoen.
They say people come to Thromde thuemi for all kinds of petty works, like transfer for thram and census among others, which according to them is not their responsibility. The Deputy Chairman of Thromde Tshogde says there is a need to streamline the roles and responsibilities of Thromde Thuemis.
“From the day we are elected, they expect us to act like a Gup. They come to us with all sorts of problems starting from land disputes to transfer of censes and land thram. While on the other, we receive calls from thromde office with the message to call certain person who are convicted by law or sometimes dispatch a letter to the villagers,” says Thromde Theumi, Namgay Tshering, adding that these kinds of jobs in the Gewog level are taken care of by the Chipoens. “Therefore we are very confused which jobs to take.”
According to the Local Government Act of Bhutan 2009, the roles and responsibilities of member of the local government is to actively participate in tendering, implementation and monitoring development activities in their respective constituencies.
“With a salary of Nu. 5000, forget about meeting our monthly expenses, it is not enough to meet our transport cost. Frankly speaking, it’s not even enough to buy doma and snacks in a month. Now our only request to the government is that, considering the matter if government could raise our pay like that of Mangmi,” says Kinley.
Meanwhile, the members also met with the Works and Human Settlement Minister to discuss about the issue. They said, the minister has assured them that the matter would be put up to the cabinet.
The need to raise salary for Thromde theumis was first decided during the 1st Annual Thromde meeting held in March this year.
