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Chandigarh: Pvt parking staff yet to get salaries, MC cites glitch in portal
Municipal commissioner Anindita Mitra said the MC is disbursing salaries through government e-marketplace (GeM) portal, but due to some issues, the portal raised objections. “We are working to resolve the issues so that salaries, which amounts to around ₹39 lakh for one month, can be disbursed as soon as possible,” she added
Chandigarh municipal corporation (MC) has yet to disburse the salaries of the staff deployed at 57 private parking lots in city’s Zone 2, which includes sectors 7, 8, 9, 17 and 22, besides Sukhna Lake.
After the MC terminated the contract of parking firm Paschatya Entertainment Private Limited in February this year over an alleged multi-crore scam, members of the House had decided that its employees would work for the civic body till the investigations are on and the contract would be given to a new company.
However, since February 21, the employees have not received their monthly salaries, which are set as per DC rate (about ₹17,000 per month for one employee).
“The Chandigarh MC had collected a demand draft of ₹10,000 from each of the employee as a security deposit, but has not disbursed the salaries so far. In most of the families, the working men are the sole breadwinners and it is being difficult for us to manage the households. We completed two months of working on Friday, but haven’t even got salaries of one month,” parking employees said.
Coming out in support of the employees, BJP councillor Saurabh Joshi said, “The MC had on Wednesday issued a show-cause notice to a contractor supplying manpower to the civic body after he caused delay in providing salaries to its 50 outsourced workers. But now, MC itself is causing delay in disbursing the salaries to its staff. We will take up the matter in the House.”
Meanwhile, municipal commissioner Anindita Mitra said, “MC is disbursing salaries through government e-marketplace (GeM) portal, but due to some issues, the portal raised objections. We are working to resolve the issues so that salaries, which amounts to around ₹39 lakh for one month, can be disbursed as soon as possible.”
It may be noted here that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is already investigating the alleged multi-crore parking scam involving contractor Anil Kumar Sharma of Paschatya Entertainment Private Limited.
It is alleged that Kumar had furnished forged bank guarantees to bag the contract of 57 parking lots in Chandigarh, and had also been diverting the funds collected to different accounts that were in his name and that of other firms.
The CBI has seized all records pertaining to parking contracts from the municipal corporation’s office in Sector 17 in this case.
The Chandigarh Police are also planning to report the scam to the enforcement directorate after discovering shell companies and a possible money laundering angle.
