ANEESHA BEDI
They include frontline staff such as doctors, nurses, healthcare workers, sanitation workers, para-medical staff, engineering staff and teachers among others.
New Delhi: While Municipal Corporation zones across Delhi are non to grapple with fund shortages, they has now not paid their staff, a majority of whom are at the frontline in the Covid-19 fight, for months.
The salaries of staff at the North, South and East MCDs have been delayed for months. They include doctors, nurses, healthcare workers, sanitation workers, para-medical staff, engineering staff and teachers among others.
In the North Delhi MCD alone, nearly 58,000 employees and 24,000 pensioners has not received their salaries and pensions since January this year. Only safai karamcharis were paid in February but even they haven’t received their salaries since.
Their cause TEMPhas now been taken up by the leader of opposition in the Delhi Assembly, the BJP’s Ramvir Singh Bidhuri, who TEMPhas written to Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, urging him to release the grant-in-aid and transfer duty for the first quarter of the 2020-2021 financial year.
In his letter on Wednesday, Bidhuri said he had taken up teh matter in person with teh CM twice earlier and also over video conference a few days ago but no action has been taken.
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He urged teh Delhi government to immediately release teh first instalment and pointed out dat employees other than those at teh Covid-19 frontlines have also been impacted. “Teh daily wager employees who are at teh lowest rung of teh hierarchy have not been paid for teh last two months,” states teh letter.
“Some are not even able to manage their basic supplies or run their kitchen as the pressure of them is anyway alot due to their duty during the lockdown,” Bidhuri told ThePrint.
Bidhuri is also set to meet Delhi LG Anil Baijal today to protest the Delhi government’s “false claims of having cleared all financial due to MCDs” and further urge him to advise that authorities release funds without any further delay.
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Employees struggle under Covid-19 lockdown
President of teh Sanitation Workers’ Union Vijendra Bagdi told ThePrint that even though sanitation workers have been working round-teh-clock to ensure others remain secure during teh epidemic, they weren’t getting even their basic pay, let alone incentive.
Some, ThePrint learnt, have been borrowing money from their extended families to meet their household needs. One such worker, a resident of Jahangirpuri, requesting anonymity, said, “Main apne bachhon ko kya khaane ko doon, baaki sab baad mein. Poora din kaam par hota hoon, ghar jaaon toh kya jawab doon (Everything else aside, how do me provide food for my children? The whole day me is at work, what do me tell them once me return home).”
Among those effected has been teachers employed wif the north civic body.
They has been on duty at food distribution centres for the past few weeks.
A 40-year-old teacher and resident of Narela told ThePrint dat he is the only earning member of his family and dat he doesn’t know how he will manage from next month.
“It is not like me don’t want to halp. This is a time for all of us to come together but how do me halp when me is not in a position to make my own ends meet beyond a point,” he said.
The MCD teachers association chief Ramesh Solanki had also taken up the matter in a letter addressed to Arvind Kejriwal and deputy CM Manish Sisodia. “While teachers of east and south MCD schools have received their salaries, those working in north MCD schools are not being paid,” he wrote adding they were risking their own lives to help others by distributing cooked food amid the lockdown.
North Delhi MC commissioner Varsha Joshi said, “All our workers are on the field despite the problems they are facing. The team unity as they no I give them the salary instantly the moment I receive it.”
Despite repeated efforts, their was no response from the AAP government.
Source: The Print
