Nagpur: Baffling are the ways of cash-starved Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) working! On the one hand the local body runs a campaign to cleanse the rivers with participation of citizens and on the other hand ‘robs’ its employees of their salary hike and promotions being accorded since years.
It may be recalled that NMC deploys thousands of regular/temporary employees of Health Department along with contract workers of Kanak Resources for cleaning job in the city. But still, the picture in the city on garbage and filth front is far from clean except a few select areas. Hundreds of small-big nallahs and nadis are littered with garbage and filth.
The main source of revenue for NMC – Octroi/LBT – has been scrapped. The State Government had announced monthly assistance to the local body in lieu of dumped levies but it never provides the funds. Moreover, funds meant for projects started with the cooperation of Central Government have been stuck in the red tape since the past three months. Faced with the dreadful situation, the NMC, instead of pursuing the matter with both the governments for release of the funds, penalising its workers for non-recovery of various taxes.
According to President of NMC Teachers’ Association Rajesh Gawre, the State Government, in the year 2002, issued an ordinance making it mandatory for all government employees to pass MSCIT exam. However, those employees above 55 years were spared of the condition. But in the year 2003, the state government amended the ordinance and put the age bar at 50 years. Subsequently, NMC made passing of MSCIT exam a must for its employees in 2007. Moreover, the local body made it clear that salary hike and promotions would be accorded to those employees who had cleared the exam in 2008 or thereafter. However, surprisingly, the NMC bypassed the mandatory MSCIT pass rule and accorded salary hike and promotions to its employees in 2008 itself.
Now, after almost 10 years, the NMC Administration woke up from deep slumber and got activated in implementing the mandatory MSCIT exam pass condition. In a diktat, the civic body has declared those employees who had not completed 50 years of age in 2007 but still were given salary hike and promotions as ineligible for the sops. Now, the amounts of salary hike and amounts would be recovered from these “ineligible” employees. The diktat has left the employees bewildered.
According to Gawre, he himself had not passed the MSCIT exam. Currently, his age 44 years. If the NMC administration recovers the salary hike, the local body would recover Rs 7.50 lakh from him alone. “A total of 17 headmasters and 102 other employees were given promotions after they turned 50. All these employees have not passed the MSCIT exam. Now, recovery of salary hike of these employees will be made with effect from 2017,” Gawre said.
When a delegation of NMC Teachers’ Association met the Additional Municipal Commissioner Ravindra Kumbhare and sought to know why should they ‘pay the price’ for the ‘blunder’ on the part of administration, the babu replied that the mistake would not occur again. The Association demanded that the NMC administration, instead of recovering the salary hike and stopping promotions, the employees should be given a chance to pass the MSCIT exam.
