Bhubaneswar, August 31: Taking strong note of non-compliance by State Government employees with court orders regarding paying maintenance to their wives, Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi has directed direct deduction of maintenance amount from the husband’s salary.

As per a CMO statement on Sunday, several male employees of the State Government were not providing maintenance grants to their wives or children. They were also not paying alimony decided by courts during hearing on divorce petitions. Despite clear orders of the court, these male employees were not complying with the court orders.

According to the CMO, during every public grievance hearing conducted by the Chief Minister, two-three such cases were being brought seeking Chief Minister’s intervention.

“Taking a firm stand, the Chief Minister has directed that this amount be deducted directly from the salaries of the concerned employees and disbursed accordingly. The Chief Minister stated that being State Government employees, showing disrespect to the court and committing such injustice towards their wives and children is completely unacceptable to the State Government,” read the statement.

Acting on the Chief Minister's directive, the State Government has issued a new set of guidelines for payment of payment of maintenance/alimony to the affected women and children.

As per guidelines, upon receiving a court order for the payment of maintenance/alimony, the Departmental DDO (Drawing & Disbursement Officer), while preparing the monthly salary bill of the concerned Government employees, shall deduct the court-mandated maintenance amount from the salary and deposit it electronically and directly into the bank account of the employee's wife or children.

The Chief Minister has directed that in the coming days, matters related to court-mandated maintenance will be integrated into the State Government's Human Resources Management System (HRMS) to further streamline and improve the mechanism, read the statement quoting the CM.