The cash-strapped North Delhi Municipal Corporation is heading toward bankruptcy as it does not have funds to pay salaries to its officials.
This month the civic agency could only pay 40 per cent of its employees, and lack of funds might lead to non-payment of salaries in the coming months, according to senior officials of the North Corporation.
Additional Commissioner Pankaj Singh said that the civic agency needs Rs 170 crore a month to pay salaries to employees.
“And around Rs 2,100 crore annually just for the disbursement of salaries. But we don’t have that kind of cash. We have managed to pay only 40 per cent of our employees and we don’t have money to pay salaries next month,” Singh said.
Officials said the corporation should take grants from the Delhi government. At present, the civic agencies take money from the Delhi government in the form of loans. “We end up paying Rs 80 crore to Rs 90 crore as interest,” Singh said.
The Delhi government has not given funds to corporations for a long time. The city government gives non-planned funds to civic agencies under three heads.
“Last year, the Delhi government promised to pay Rs 620 crore under the education sector, but later reduced it to over Rs 450 crore. So we were at a loss of over Rs 150 crore,” Singh said.
“We were supposed to get Rs 302 crore in the form of tax from the city government, but we haven’t seen this amount so far,” he added.
Even the councillors said that pensions have not been given to beneficiaries for months.
“People have not been given pensions for over eight months. Those Rs 1,200 is the lifeline of those people,” said Virender Babbar, a councillor from Paharganj.The opposition also blamed the civic agency for issuing the tender for toll tax, which has caused the corporation loss of crores of rupees.