While the North and East corporations have raised hopes of an early end to the crisis by accepting Rs 300-crore loan offered by the lieutenant-Governor as an interim relief to pay salaries to the striking sanitation workers, the Delhi Government’s “unrealistic” conditions like terminating services of contractual sanitation workers and beldars and a freeze on fresh recruitments, have made it impossible for the two civic bodies to avail the Rs 551-crore loan provided to them by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Government. Sources said the civic bodies have rejected the conditions set by the Government.
Following the l-G’s move, municipal doctors said they will rejoin duty on Saturday morning, however, the sanitation crisis in the national Capital is unlikely to end anytime soon even though the loan was released on Thursday evening, as these riders are just part of at least half a dozen conditions imposed on the two civic bodies.
A document related to the fresh conditions imposed by the Delhi Government on the corporations said, “There will be no fresh recruitments, particularly of Group-IV employees, viz safai karamcharis, beldars and fresh regularisation. The safai karamcharis and beldars engaged on a temporary basis will be discontinued in a phased manner within a year.”
This strongly violates the AAP’s own principle as it had vociferously advocated regularisation of all contractual employees of the Delhi Government before the Assembly elections in 2015.
Among other conditions imposed on the civic bodies is that they would not only re-assess all their schemes, but would also not increase the
scope of any scheme and its liability and ensure no new scheme is launched without approval of the AAP Government. The civic agencies were told to increase their revenue through improved Property Tax coverage and bring more properties under the net.
The civic agencies have also been directed to increase their revenue from advertisements, parking lots and other remunerative projects.
Other condition imposed on the civic bodies is that they should not provide any concession or rebate in taxes, fees or charges levied by them. They have been directed to implement the Municipal Valuation Committee report in the next two months and also apprise the city Government of the same.
The interest rate on the loan from the Government would be 10 per cent annually subject to change by the Government from time to time. The amount of interest rate would be deducted by the Government from the grant-in-aid for the corporations for the year 2016-17.
The new conditions imposed on the civic agencies to provide salaries up to January 31 is bound to have major political implications as the three corporations are scheduled to go to polls in 2017. It is estimated that there are 6,000-7,000 temporary sanitation workers in EDMC and NMC. Besides, there are 3,400 beldars in NMC and 2,000 in EDMC.
Political pundits in the city are of the view that the fresh conditions are likely to have major implications as the AAP is also planning to contest the municipal polls in all the 272 wards in the city in 2017.
However, Delhi Government officials said that there was no change in the conditions of loan to MCDs. “The conditions are similar to conditions of 2014-15 when loan given to MCDs,” said officials.
Meanwhile, in a positive development doctors and others working with municipal hospitals have decided to join work from Saturday morning.
Dr RR Gautam, president of Municipal Corporation Doctors Association told The Pioneer: “We have decided to call off the strike and resume work as our salaries till January have been paid and they have been promised that they will be paid salaries till March in a day or two”.
Also, on Friday lieutenant-Governor Najeeb Jung ensured Rs 300 crore additional loan from the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) to the two NMC and EDMC. After a meeting with three mayors, Jung’s office said an amount of Rs 300 crore will be given to the NMC and EDMC from the DDA and also appealed to the protesters to end the indefinite strike in the “interest of the city”. The amount of Rs 300 crore is likely to be adjusted in the Property Tax that has to be recovered from the DDA.
On Wednesday, the Delhi Government had announced a financial assistance of Rs 693 crore to the civic bodies out of which Rs 551 crore was a loan. Despite that, the civic employees have refused to end their ongoing strike saying that just providing salaries was not enough and they were demanding their arrears and unification of the three municipal bodies as well as a permanent solution to the ongoing crisis.
Delhi Congress president Ajay Maken has strongly condemned the AAP’s conditions on the municipal bodies. “It was totally unjustified to put conditions like removal of temporary sanitation workers and beldars, despite the fact that the AAP had promised to make them all permanent. The AAP Government was putting condition for their removal for the sanction of the loans to the MCDs, which was totally unjustified and inhuman,” Maken said.