In an important decision, the District Magistrate Pauri Sushil Kumar has stripped the executive officer Srinagar Nagar Palika Parishad PK Bansal of the drawing/dispersing power and handed it over to the Sub-Divisional Magistrate Srinagar Maya Dutt Joshi on late Thursday evening. The decision came in the wake of the Nagar Palika Parishad employees continuing with an agitation for the past four days against their salary being withheld. They withdrew the stir on Friday after the DM announced his decision and the salary got into their accounts.
Notably, with three days’ salary of the executive officer, Nagar Palika Parishad Srinagar being withheld for June, the executive officer had not cleared the salary of the civic body employees for the same month. The matter having come to the notice of the DM, the latter had asked the executive officer to disperse the salary of the palika employees. However, the executive officer had chosen to remain defiant. The second order from the DM leaving no impact on the defiant executive officer, the aggrieved employees, at the receiving end of the dragging logjam, had resorted to a stir while boycotting works. Venting anger, some of them had dumped garbage on the gate of Nagar Palika Parishad office on Thursday.
The standoff ended on late Thursday evening as the DM took the stern step of stripping the executive officer of the drawing-dispersing power and handing it over to the sub-divisional magistrate that resulted in the clearance of the held-up salaries of the civic body employees. The employees said that they have withdrawn their agitation with the salary being debited in their accounts.