The Delhi High Court has asked the municipal corporations to devise a policy, wherein its funds may be used to disburse salaries across all cadres of workers, without favouring any one over the other, especially when there is a cash crunch.
The court has been hearing pleas from teachers, nurses and other employees of various categories of MCD, who have not received their salaries for months. Even pensioners have not received their pensions since February 2020.
Meanwhile, the corporations maintain that they have disbursed salaries to some cadres, but are in no position to pay others due to dearth of funds. They claim that the Delhi government has not released sufficient funds to enable them to pay salaries to employees across all ranks and cadres. The Delhi government, on the other hand, claims that tax collection had been badly hit due to the pandemic. As a result, revenue from taxes fell by 57 per cent, therefore the share that is given to the corporations also suffered drastically.
Additionally, the Court was also informed that the Delhi government is apparently yet to obtain funds from the Centre out of the GST collection, and that it should be made a party in all the matters that have been raised with regard to the salaries of MCD employees. Following this, the Court made the Central government a party in the case, and listed all the issues for hearing in November.
