Meet Umesh Nayak.
A qualified engineer at Heavy Engineering Corporation (HEC) – the very company that manufactures heavy equipment for India’s defence forces and railways.
For the last 18 months, he hasn’t received a single rupee as salary.
So what does he do to feed his family?
He drives an auto-rickshaw on the streets of Ranchi.
And he’s not alone. Over 3,000 workers at this critical PSU are in the same boat – unpaid, humiliated, and watching their lives collapse while governments across the country compete to hand out freebies like it’s diwali every day.
This isn’t a sob story.
This is a national disgrace.
A qualified engineer at Heavy Engineering Corporation (HEC) – the very company that manufactures heavy equipment for India’s defence forces and railways.
For the last 18 months, he hasn’t received a single rupee as salary.
So what does he do to feed his family?
He drives an auto-rickshaw on the streets of Ranchi.
And he’s not alone. Over 3,000 workers at this critical PSU are in the same boat – unpaid, humiliated, and watching their lives collapse while governments across the country compete to hand out freebies like it’s diwali every day.
This isn’t a sob story.
This is a national disgrace.
1. HEC isn’t some random factory – it builds stuff that protects India.
They make equipment for our army, navy, railways, steel plants, and power projects. This is strategic, defence-linked infrastructure. Yet the men and women who keep it running haven’t seen their salaries for a year and a half. Try imagining soldiers at the border getting paid in promises while their equipment makers beg on the streets.
2. Umesh nayak isn’t some daily-wager – he’s a trained engineer reduced to an auto driver.
Look at that photo: A proud man standing beside his little auto, still wearing the dignity of someone who once built heavy machines for the nation. Now he’s dodging traffic to earn enough for roti. This is what “skilled India” looks like when governments decide free cycles and free electricity are sexier than paying honest workers.3. 3,000+ families destroyed… but freebies are “more important”.
The tweet said it perfectly. Politicians have money for Ladli Behna schemes, free bus rides, free ration, free laptops, free everything – except the salaries of people who actually build the country’s backbone. The priority is crystal clear: votes first, workers never.
4. This isn’t one PSU – it’s a pattern across India.
Teachers are paid once in six months, ITI workers on a ₹2700 pension, vendors waiting forever for bills… the system is broken. But god forbid a politician stops the freebie flow – their vote bank might notice. So they let critical PSUs bleed dry while patting themselves on the back for “welfare”.
5. The worst part? Nobody in power seems ashamed.
No emergency meeting. No salary release order. No accountability. Just silence while an engineer who should be designing defence gear is now negotiating fares with passengers. This is the real “anti-national” act – not some tweet, but letting the hands that build India’s strength go hungry.
Look, we can argue about freebies all day. Some help the genuinely poor. But when a defence PSU engineer has to drive an auto because the government can’t pay basic salaries, we have crossed from welfare into criminal negligence.
Umesh nayak and 3,000 of his colleagues aren’t asking for charity.
They’re asking for the salary they earned building equipment that keeps our country safe.
They’re asking for the salary they earned building equipment that keeps our country safe.
And right now, india doesn’t like what it sees.
Time to stop the freebie circus and pay the people who actually matter.
Before more engineers pick up the auto steering instead of the welding torch.
This shame has gone on long enough.
Time to stop the freebie circus and pay the people who actually matter.
Before more engineers pick up the auto steering instead of the welding torch.
This shame has gone on long enough.
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