Sign contract, get salary on monthly basis: SAI to coaches

New Delhi: Putting the blame on unhappy shooting coaches, the SAI today said they were being paid on pro-rata basis since they have not signed the contract with them which was mandatory for getting salary on monthly basis.

SAI has now set a February 1 deadline for protesting coaches to sign the contract. Junior rifle chief coach and Olympian Deepali Deshpande has reportedly resigned in protest against the low remuneration, based on pro-rata system, paid by the Sports Authority of India. SAI Director General Jiji Thomson said the issue has cropped up due to "communication gap" between National Rifles Association of India (NRAI) and the Indian coaches associated with the senior and junior teams. He also said that SAI was only following the guidelines laid down by the sports ministry. "We have coaches in other sporting disciplines also who have signed the contract with us and are accordingly receiving their monthly salaries. The shooting coaches have not signed the contract and we have told them to sign it by February 1 and start receiving salaries on monthly basis. Till that time, we will continue paying them on a pro-rata basis," Thosmon told PTI. "We had issued a circular to all National Sports Federations on March 13 last year informing them that the coaches employed by them will have to sign the contract with SAI in order to receive salaries on monthly basis. Those, who have not signed as is the case with NRAI, they will continue to receive their dues on pro-rata basis," Thosmon informed. NRAI president Raninder Singh said the federation has called the meeting of all the 31 coaches tomorrow at Tughlaqabad shooting range to put their apprehensions about the contract to rest and make them sign it before February 1. "All the 31 coaches will sign an individual contract with the SAI normally for a period of one year commencing February 1. They will start getting their salaries on monthly basis after that. NRAI, Indian coaches and SAI officials are meeting tomorrow at 4pm to sort out the matter. We will tell the coaches to enter into an agreement with the SAI and start getting their full dues," said Raninder. Raninder said that he met DG SAI today and explained him that whatever amount they have released to the coaches did not make for their full salary till January 31, 2014. "We made a representation to him and Rajinder Singh (Head, Teams Division, SAI) that they have only released the amount when the coaches were preparing the team before a foreign tour at the coaching camps. SAI did not take into account their working days when they were preparing the teams for Nationals, state-level tournaments and other competitions. We told them it`s the part payment you have made to the coaches and you need to pay them the balance amount to which they have agreed," he informed. The controversy started when the SAI released amounts of coaches on the NRAI panel lower than what they were promised as remuneration for the past 15 months. All the coaches had been working without pay for that duration. When the coaches had signed on with the NRAI in October 2012, the payment agreed upon was Rs 50,000 per month for chief coaches and Rs 30,000 per month for other coaches. It has been learnt that some of them got as little as Rs 65,000 for a 15-month period when SAI finally decided to pay them only last month.