‘5 months’ pending salaries of Hardayal library staff released’

: Five months’ pending salaries of 96 employees of Delhi’s historic Hardayal library has been released, with Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday saying there is now an “honest government” in the municipal corporation that works for commoners.

The released salaries in lumpsum pertains to the five months of 2021, according to an official statement.

“On Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s direction, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) today released the salaries of 96 employees of the Hardayal Municipal Public Library (HMPL) for five months,” it said.

The over 160-year-old library in Delhi’s Chandni Chowk area was christened as Hardinge Library in 1916 and boasts of a rich collection of books in Hindi, English, Urdu, Arabic, Persian and Sanskrit.

The employees of the library had been sitting on dharna for the last 35 months as their salaries had not been paid since 2021, the statement said.

Kejriwal addressed a group of employees of the library who had gathered at the Chief Minister’s Camp Office to thank him for redressing their long-pending grievances, the statement said. The chief minister expressed happiness on the release of five months’ salaries after a long struggle.

“A provision has been made for your salaries for the remaining period, and it will also be released soon,” he was quoted as saying in the statement.

AAP’s MLA and MCD in-charge Durgesh Pathak, Mayor Shelly Oberoi, Deputy Mayor Aaley Mohammad Iqbal and Leader of MCD House Mukesh Goel were also present on the occasion.

Kejriwal said his regime is a government of the commoners and they understand the pain and suffering of the common people because its members also come from the same background.

“We are not politicians. In Punjab, our party has 92 elected MLAs. Of these, 80 are first-timers. Barring five to seven MLAs, most are first-timers in Delhi as well. We also come from the middle-class and understand how difficult it is to survive without a salary,” he said.

In a veiled reference to the BJP, Kejriwal said, “They curse us for providing electricity, water, health facilities and quality education for free.”

“The basic needs of a common man are electricity, water, education and treatment, if he gets these, then he does not need anything else. We are working for you people (citizens),” he told the group of library staff.

“Earlier there was a dishonest government, which ruined the MCD in 15 years, now there is an honest government. You must have noticed the difference in the functioning of the MCD in the last one year even though they have snatched our various powers and they are not allowing (formation) of a standing committee,” he said.

Pathak said the employees of the library have “suffered a lot”.

“They were denied salary for over 30 months,” the AAP MLA alleged.