Unpaid corpn teachers say funds used to pay safai staff

Unpaid corpn teachers say funds used to pay safai staff

Paras.Singh@timesgroup.com

New Delhi:  02.07.2020

More than 9,000 municipal teachers and pensioners of North Delhi Municipal Corporation continue to remain unpaid for the past three months. While a section of teachers deployed on Covid duties received a month’s salary, they were left penniless again after using the money to repay loans and pending bills.

The teachers’ union also alleged that the money meant for them was diverted to pay sanitation workers. Kuldeep Khatri, who heads Shikshak Nyaya Manch Nagar Nigam, said, “Our salary is pending from March to June. Around 5,400 teachers who were on Covid duty were paid only for March, but there was favouritism during disbursement. Another Rs 49 crore was released by Delhi government, but it was used to pay sanitation workers.”

Ramniwas Solanki, general secretary of Nagar Nigam Shikshak Sangh, said, “Teachers haven’t been able to pay loans, house rent and even school fees of children. They are being forced to live a life of desperation and economic insecurity. The problem of delayed salary goes back to the faulty trifurcation of the municipal corporation. In 2014, the salary was delayed by a month. But now the dues are of four months.”

“Our job is to teach, but we are being used to distribute rations, carry out surveys and deployed in containment zones. Are we not human? We are being told to find Covid patients without being paid. More than 200 teachers have been infected with the virus on duty, but no one cares about us,” Khatri said.

Jai Prakash, north corporation mayor, said, “It will be wrong to say that only the corporation and not Delhi government is to blame. We were supposed to get Rs 556 crore in the first quarter of the year, but didn’t. Delhi high court also blasted the government. The court said we will be blamed if the teachers don’t get paid. The teachers are being used by Delhi government to distribute rations and fight the virus, so it should help us.”

“We have extended the deadline for paying property tax so that our revenue stream increases and we can pay the employees. The government should help in this extraordinary situation as we are providing it manpower,” added Prakash.

4 9  CRORE RUPEES RELEASED BY DELHI GOVT