Business World magazine is facing a financial crisis, with 80 or so employees not getting salaries for four months, according to a report in The Hoot.

It quoted a senior staff member as saying that “any letter or demand pressing for payment is followed by a dressing down by Anurag Batra, Chairman and Editor-in-Chief of the BW Group, over poor performance and not meeting targets. This is followed by demands to resign”.

“Once out of the rolls of the company, Business World never pays,” a journalist was quoted as saying in the report, talking about the problem of leaving the company. While the threats of being thrown out have throttled protests, some of the aggrieved staff has started a signature campaign demanding that dues be cleared and wages be paid on time.

For India’s second oldest business magazine, things started going downhill from early 2015 and worsened by the middle of 2016, with backlogs rising to 2-3 months, The Hoot report said, adding that its mails to the bosses on the issue have gone unanswered. “Batra has however now conveyed through others that the unpaid dues are for two months, not four, that he last paid in March, and that he hopes to clear the outstanding very soon,” it added.