Indian Paralympians made the entire country proud in Tokyo, breaking all previous records by touching double digits in the medals tally with a few days still to go in the event. The performances of athletes like Avani Lakhera, Devendra Jhajharia, Sundar Singh Gurjar, etc. didn’t just prove to be eye-opening for sports fanatics all over India but also opened the eyes of the Rajasthan forest department.

Lakhera, Jhajharia, and Gurjar were all recruited by the forest department in Rajasthan about 5-10 months ago. As per a report in the Times of India, none of them had received a single month’s salary.

The trio arrived in Tokyo with their dues yet to be settled. On Wednesday, however, the forest department cleared all of the pending dues, but, only after the families of two of the para-athletes said that they had not been paid a single rupee since the hiring took place.

In their defence, the Rajasthan forest department said that the documents of the para-athletes weren’t complete. The officials, as per TOI, said that since they were practicing outside the state, the documentation could not be completed. Hence, the disbursement of salary was put on hold.

An employee must be physically present to create a permanent retirement account number and link it to Aadhaar. Since they were not in Rajasthan, this couldn’t be done. Also, the players formally joined service at the state secretariat instead of Aranya Bhawan (the forest department headquarters),” a senior official had said.

Lakhera was hired on April 16 this year while Jhajharia and Gujrar had been appointed on November 5 and December 01 last year.

Deep Narayan Pandey, who was recently appointed as the head of the department, said that rules had to be relaxed in order for them to release the held-up dues of the para-athletes