Parking attendants to get wages, benefits as per labour laws

To ensure that parking attendants get wages and other employment benefits as per the labour laws, the South Delhi Municipal Corporation has decided to make it mandatory for the contractors of the surface parking lots to pay their staff members accordingly.

The South Corporation is to open tender for allotment of its 74 surface parking lots soon and has framed a new parking policy with new guidelines aimed at their better regulation.

The mandatory clause of giving wages to the parking attendants as per the Minimum Wages Act is part of the new policy. It will be incorporated in the tender documents.
The corporation officials said while the new rule would benefit the employees, it would also offer better services to the public.

“At present the contractors employ people virtually for nothing. People often complain about getting fleeced at the hands of the parking attendants and find them rude. One of the basic reasons behind this is the low wages paid to attendants,” said Ashish Sood, chairman, remunerative project (RP) cell.    

“While most of the attendants are uneducated, the contractors give them a long rope to make money on their own as they pay them a very low wage,” said Sood.

The officials said with the minimum wages being fixed, the contractors are likely to employ more educated staff members.

“Several technological innovations like hand-held devices for issuing parking slips are also being included as per the new parking policy. It would anyway require more literate staff members,” Sood added.

As per the latest amendments, the Delhi governm-ent has increased the minimum wages of unskilled, semi-skilled and skilled workers in the city.

The monthly minimum wages of unskilled workers has gone up from Rs 6,656 to Rs 7,020, for semi-skilled labour from Rs 7,358 to Rs 7,748 and for skilled labour from Rs 8,112 to Rs 8,528.

Apart from the minimum  wages, the parking attendants will also be able to avail other employment benefits like medical care for themselves and their dependants, provident fund and extra wages for overtime, they added.

In order to make sure the contractors implement the clause in letter and spirit, the corporation will ask the contractors to submit audit reports of their expenses on the
quarterly basis, the officials said.