The three mayors of the municipal corporations along with party councillors took out a march from Rajghat to the Delhi Secretariat demanding funds from the Aam Aadmi Party government and implementation of Fourth Finance Commission’s recommendations on Monday.
They were detained by police near Indira Gandhi stadium and later released.
North Corporation Mayor Ravinder Gupta said that they were detained near the Delhi Secretariat and taken to IP Estate police station. “It’s not a secret that the municipal corporations don’t have funds. The AAP government should stop playing politics over the issue and give corporations their due share of funds,” said Gupta.
“The government should implement the recommendations of the Fourth Finance Commission which increase corporations’ share the city government’s taxes,” he added.
South Delhi Municipal Corporation’s Mayor Subhash Arya and East Delhi Mayor Harshdeep Malhotra raised similar concerns. “Due to lack of funds, corporations are not able to carry out their core functions,” said Malhotra.
Protesters gave a memorandum of demands at the Chief Minister’s Office.
The North and East Corporations are in the red. The East Delhi Municipal Corporation requires over Rs 100 crore to pay salaries and other benefits to its over 32,000 employees.
Even the North Corporation is in the red and it requires Rs 171 crore to pay salaries and other benefits to its over 70,000 employees.
Only the South Delhi Municipal Corporation is self-sufficient in financial matters.
Even the Delhi BJP had attacked the AAP government for delay in issuing funds to MCDs.
After the High Court order the city government should not delay giving funds to the three municipal corporations as recommended by the Fourth Finance Commission, it added.
Employees of the North and East Corporations have decided to stage a protest at Civic Centre on Thursday demanding salaries, clearance of dues and regularisation of contractual employees.
Workers’ unions said that unification of the three corporations is the only way out as all the sources of income has gone to the South Delhi Municipal Corporation.
They added that workers have been sitting on relay hunger strike at Jantar Mantar for the past couple of weeks.
