Why HAL Employees Are Unhappy

According to the aggrieved members, all these miseries have been brought upon them through the inefficiency of the directors who never put their head down to solve the problem.

The Aircraft Employees Co-operative Society (AECS), part of the public sector defence underta king, Hi ndusta n Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) has been one of the premier co- operative societies in the city. The Society extends financial assistance and allots housing sites to its me mbers. The society has de veloped layouts in the past and the most recent one has been the Kudlu Singasandra layout on Hosur Road, but this has been alas, an unfinished story. The new layout was initiated in 1985 and over the past two decades, the layout has been riddled with myriad problems. Although the civil work began long back, much of the roads, sanitation and civil works has moved at a snail's pace. The layout plan is pending with the BDA for approval, since the Society has not been able to adhere to BDA guidelines.

Many of the Society's members have been allotted sites, numbering in thousands, but many of them have not got the Khatha and other documents. Over the years some of the site owners managed to get the Khatha, but it has been abruptly stopped in between. All this has led to innumerable problems to its members who, as public sector employees used up all their savings, be it PF, small family savings and borrowings to fina nce the purc hase of the sites. While some of the members have retired, a few others have passed away and those who continue to be in service do not have a well docum ented site even today.
Accor ding to the aggrieved members, all these miseries have been brought upon them through the inefficiency of the directors who never put their head down to solve the problem. Their attitude towards the welfare of the members was far from desirable. In the recent years the directors got elected to the posts resorting to muscle and money power and things have become bad to worse, the members say. Not surprisingly, an enquiry by the government authorities revealed irregularities in the functioning of the society. Recently the government acted on the report and dismissed the existing directors and appointed an administrator to look into the matter and conduct new election within six months.

As the directors continued to remain silent spectators, land owners used the opportunity to grab land or create trouble for the site owners. In one case a land owner used a site owner's land to bury the dead. Even when the matter was referred to the directors, they failed to react. The site owner eventually filed a case with the jurisdictional police station where it is still pending. In this case the site owner holds a BDA Khatha and has paid taxes till date.