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Mohali mayor, councillors gift themselves pay hike
Mohali MC General House approves 60-75% hike in constituency allowance; mayor to get ₹48,000 besides ₹15,000 honorarium every month
The General House of the Mohali municipal corporation on Thursday approved up to 75% hike in the constituency allowance of the mayor, senior deputy mayor, deputy mayor and councillors.
The agenda for the hike was approved unanimously during the meeting, which got over in just 25 minutes.
If the proposal is approved by the local bodies department of Punjab, the mayor will be paid ₹63,000 per month, while the senior deputy mayor will get ₹55,000, the deputy mayor will get ₹47,750 and remaining councillors will get ₹27,000. The amount includes both constituency allowance and honorarium paid to them.
Constituency allowance is given to councillors in lieu of the amount spent on telephone/mobile bills, fuel and hospitality, while honorarium is a voluntary payment given to a councillor for services delivered.
The House has hiked the monthly constituency allowance of the mayor from ₹30,000 to ₹48,000. For the senior deputy mayor and deputy mayor, the hike is from ₹24,000 to ₹40,000 and from ₹18,750 to ₹32,750, respectively. Councillors will be paid ₹25,000 instead of ₹15,000. The mayor, senior deputy mayor and deputy mayor are also paid an honorarium of ₹15,000 each, while councillors get ₹2,000 each.
While presiding over the meeting, mayor Amarjit Singh Sidhu said the decision has been taken in the wake of price rise. He said it was a long-pending demand of the councillors as the allowance had not been increased since the municipal corporation was formed in 2010.
“Even the MC is not facing any financial crisis now, as the state government has given us enough funds to carry out developments works in the city,” he said.
Krishan Lal Sharma, general secretary, Citizen Welfare and Development Forum, Mohali, said: “We strongly condemn the decision of the civic body to hike the allowances of councillors while the city is in a bad shape. Both power and water supply are erratic and even the sanitation is poor.”
MC employee dismissed
The House also approved the dismissal of a junior assistant posted with the municipal corporation for dereliction of duty.
The official, Kesar Singh, was the head of the stray cattle catching team when MLA Balbir Singh Sidhu had raided a park in Sector 71 in September 2017. There was a tip-off that cattle were tied there for grazing illegally, but nothing was found. It led to suspicion that some MC official had passed on the information to dairy farmers who then removed the cattle.
An inquiry was instituted, which found Kesar Singh guilty and recommended his dismissal from service. Its report was tabled before the MC House on Thursday and was unanimously approved.
Apart from this, the House allowed three-month extension to the contract for maintenance of various toilet blocks and passed a resolution for bringing minor roads in Mohali under mechanical sweeping.
