Kolkata: Around 14,000 odd employees of Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) associated with urban employment scheme have reasons to cheer with the civic body streamlining the process of payment of salaries to them through the introduction of the online system. The process of sending hard copies of attendance and other necessary documents for generation of salary bills was a time consuming affair and there were sometimes complaints related to delayed payments. Mayor Firhad Hakim had set 5th of every month as the scheduled date for sending of bills to the accounts in complete online mode so that the payments are completed latest by the 10th of every month.
“Following the directions of the Mayor, I held a meeting with senior officials of Finance and Accounts department in presence of Director Generals (DGs), all 15 Borough Executive chairmen and Executive engineers in presence of Commissioner and asked the borough level officials to send bills to the Accounts department latest by the 3rd of every month.
The employees of urban employment scheme have to put in a lot of labour braving adverse weather conditions and we sincerely believe that they should get their wages early every month,” said Ashim Basu, Member-Mayor-In-Council (MMIC) of West Bengal Urban Employment Scheme (WBUES). According to sources in KMC’s Finance and Accounts department, the wages paid to employees of WBUES is to the tune of Rs 9.5 crore per month.
In April, due to a shift from physical to online mode coupled with the shifting of the Finance and Accounts department from KMC headquarters to Khadya Bhavan building at Mirza Ghalib Street, there was loss of working hours.
However, the civic body is on course to pay April wages by May 15.
“With effect from June, we are hopeful that the process will be streamlined and the wages would be paid by the 10th of every month,” said an official of KMC’s Accounts department.