Maliwal asks DCW admin to stop her salary till others are paid

Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) Chairperson Swati Maliwal has asked the administration to not release her salary until all the contractual employees are paid their salaries. Without naming any person for not releasing the salary of the contractual employees, she called the act as ‘criminal’ and alleged that they were punished on Diwali for working hard.

“Not paying DCW staff salary is inhuman. I have told DCW administration to not release my salary also until all contractual staff is paid salaries,” said Swati Maliwal, Chairperson of DCW on Monday. She further emphasised that the contractual staff whose salaries were withheld by the Member Secretary of the Commission allegedly on the directions of Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung, was very little in comparison to the hard work they do. 

“Of the 95 DCW employees whose salaries have been stopped, 79 earn less than Rs 25,000. No other commission worked so much, none targeted in this way,” she added. In an apparent rhetoric she further added: “I would not have been aggrieved had they thrown me inside the prison. It would have been a very bright Diwali in the life of an orphan or acid attack victims. They have blackened their Diwali.” 

Maliwal had celebrated her Diwali with the children of Asha Kiran, the home of orphans run by the Delhi government in the city.

The issue of hiring contractual employees is a bone of contention between the DCW and the LG Secretariat after the former DCW Chairperson Barkha Singh lodged a complaint of corruption with the Anti Corruption Branch (ACB) of the Delhi government. 

In her complaint, Singh alleged that all the contractual employees were recruited without following any procedure in which AAP workers were preferred. DCW has however denied the allegations but ACB has already started investigation into the matter. In the course of investigation, ACB has carried out raids in DCW office and even questioned Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia in this case.