E-Paper
Rs 6 cr corpus to clear dues
THE CONTENTIOUS issue of pending dues of pensioners at Kanpur Municipal Corporation (KMC) has been resolved to a large extent by the outgoing Municipal Commissioner Badal Chatterji.
THE CONTENTIOUS issue of pending dues of pensioners at Kanpur Municipal Corporation (KMC) has been resolved to a large extent by the outgoing Municipal Commissioner Badal Chatterji.
Chatterjee who had to contest a prolonged case at Allahabad High Court over the issue, has opened two separate accounts with a corpus of Rs 6 crore for ensuring timely payment of pension to KMC employees retiring in the financial year 2006-2007.
KMC has opened a ‘retirement fund account’ with a corpus of Rs 4 crore and a separate ‘pension fund 2006-2007’ with a corpus of Rs 2 crore at Punjab National Bank and Allahabad Bank, respectively.
The retirement fund account is an effort to take care of pending dues of pensioners and clear the backlog while the pension fund 2006-2007 will take care of those KMC employees retiring in the current financial year.
The enormity of the problem can be gauged by the fact that pension dues of pensioners amounting to Rs 70 crore are pending. Due to financial crisis, KMC has not been able to clear the pension dues of about 6900 pensioners.
One of the pensioners Indee Devi had filed a writ petition at Allahabad High Court on August 3 seeking directives to KMC to pay her pending pension dues.
Following the writ, the High Court had imposed a ban on all development activities and payments to be made including salary of employees unless the civic body cleared the pending dues of its pensioners. It was only last month after several hearings and presentation of facts by Badal Chatterji that the High Court lifted the embargo on development projects and payment of salary to employees.
A senior KMC official stated that despite acute financial crunch, Chatterji deposited a considerable amount of Rs 6 crore in two separate accounts.
“The pension issue is very old and Badal Chatterji has nothing to do with it. But he succeeded in resolving the issue to a great extent,” added the official.
Employees’ Union leaders of KMC Ramakant Bajpai and Baburam Baghmar were also of the same opinion and applauded the efforts put in by the former municipal commissioner in resolving the pension issue.
