ISRO technician who helped build Chandrayaan-3 launchpad is selling idli

Around 2,800 HEC employees, along with Uprariya have not got their salary for 18 months, media reports said

Deepak Kumar Uprariya, a former technician at Heavy Engineering Corporation Limited (HEC), who played a role in building ISRO’s Chandrayaan-3 launchpad, has been making a living by selling idlis at a roadside stall in Ranchi in Bihar. Why? Because Government run HEC failed to pay his salary for 18 months.

Chandrayaan-3 achieved a historic soft landing on the Moon’s South Pole in August, making India the first country to achieve this remarkable feat. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had congratulated the ISRO scientists and even addressed the launchpad workers.

According to media reports, it is not just Uprariya but around 2,800 HEC employees said that they have not got their salaries for 18 months.

Uprariya said that he has been selling idlis for the past few days to make ends meet. He has been managing his shop and office work together. The technician sells idlis in the morning and goes to the office in the afternoon. In the evening, he sells idlis again before heading back home, an NDTV report said.

In 2012, Uprariya quit his job in a private company and joined HEC on a salary of Rs 8,000. Having joined a government firm, he hoped that his future would be bright but things did not turn out the way he expected it would. When he did not get salaries for 18 months, he opened the idli stall because he realised that if he did not find an alternate source of income he and his family of would soon die of starvation. He started selling idlis before and after office.

Explaining his situation, Uprariya said, “First I managed my house with a credit card. I got a loan of Rs 2 lakh. I was declared a defaulter. After that, I started running the house by taking money from relatives.”
“So far I have taken a loan of Rs 4 lakh. As I have not returned the money to anyone, now people have stopped lending. Then I mortgaged my wife’s jewellery and ran the house for a few days,” the NDTV reported quoted him.

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