Around 2,000 officers and employees of Maharashtra’s prison department, including staff at Pune’s Yerawada Prison, have not received their September salaries after the state government failed to extend their temporary posts on time, according to a report by Punekar News. With half of October already over, employees say the delay is affecting loan payments, children’s education expenses and routine household costs.
The affected employees have urged the government to approve the extension of their posts immediately. The salary disruption comes during the festive season, with Navratri underway, Dussehra approaching and Diwali scheduled for next month. Employees told Punekar News that the uncertainty has added to their financial pressure and made it difficult to plan household spending and family celebrations.
The issue is linked to the way newly created prison department posts are administered. Maharashtra has 60 prisons, comprising nine central prisons, 28 district prisons and 19 open prisons, along with a special women’s prison, a juvenile correctional facility and a children’s correctional home. The department created around 2,000 posts over the past one to two years in response to the increasing number of prisons and pressure from the inmate population.
Under government guidelines cited in the report, posts that have not completed three years are treated as temporary and require an extension every six months. Salaries for employees appointed against those posts are released after the extension is approved. Once a post completes three years, it is treated as permanent under the stated process.
The temporary posts cover a wide range of responsibilities, from senior prison officials such as inspectors general and superintendents to prison guards. The delayed extensions have therefore affected employees across different levels of the department rather than a single job category. The September salary payments were withheld after the required approval was not granted in recent days, according to the report.
The episode places attention on the administrative link between staffing approvals and the functioning of essential public institutions. Prison employees are responsible for security, supervision and daily operations across a large network of facilities, while the department is also dealing with rising pressure from its inmate population. The report does not provide details of any disruption to prison operations or specify when the government will approve the extensions.
Employees have called for an immediate decision so that the September salaries can be released and the uncertainty over their posts can be resolved. The next step is the state government’s approval of the temporary-post extensions, after which the department’s salary payments can proceed under the stated rules.
