The Seventh Pay Commission’s recommendations, calling for a 23 per cent hike in salaries and arrears – running into crores of rupees – has multiplied the woes of the cash-strapped municipal corporations.
Of the three municipal corporations, the North Delhi Municipal Corporation (North MCD), which does not have enough money to pay its employees, has announced to adopt the pay panel’s recommendations first. The civic body, however, has no plans in place to increase its scope of revenue generation.
The North MCD’s salary expenditure is Rs 2,640 crore against its internal revenue of Rs 2,375 crore.
The internal revenue generated by the three corporations is Rs 5,975 crore. The combined salary expenditure is nearly Rs 6,240 crore, which includes salaries of employees, arrears and medical allowances. Moreover, the pay panel’s recommendations has put an extra burden of Rs 2,000 crore on the civic bodies.
Leader of the House in North MCD, Yogender Chandolia, had approved budget estimates for the civic body last week, wherein it was announced that the pay panel’s recommendations would be adopted at the earliest.
However, senior officials in the three MCDs emphasise that the civic agencies need to increase their scope of revenue generation so as to pay salaries to their employees as recommended by the pay panel.
Revenue collection by way of house tax, parking fee, advertisement, conversion charges and building plan sanction does not come in regularly, which has led to a delay in the payment of salaries. This is the situation when 40 per cent of the posts are vacant and most of the staff are contractual, who are paid much less than their permanent counterparts.
“They have no strategy in place to disburse hiked salaries. They have no idea how to generate revenue and keep with the salaries that will be increased once the the Pay Commission is executed. There was no announcement on revenue generation or ways in which the corporation can do better monetarily,” said Mukesh Goel, Leader of Opposition in North MCD.