Citing fund crunch, Panchkula minicipal corporation lays off 249 contractual staffers

This is the first time such huge retrenchment has happened from the Municipal Corporation at one go, say employees. "The decision has been taken to increase the income of the corporation and to keep providing for the permanent employees," said an official of MC.




A week after terminating the contracts of two senior consultants of the Municipal Corporation of Panchkula, the MC Commissioner on Monday laid off 249 more contractual employees that had been employed with them for several years.

Citing a fund crunch as the main reason for laying off these employees, Municipal Commissioner Sumedha Kataria said, “This was all engaged manpower which was taken on a purely need and emergency basis. Over a period of time, 600 such people had been engaged. At the moment, I do not have the luxury to employ so many people as just the past month, I have spent Rs 70 crore and earned only Rs 30 crore. Rest assured, we will not hinder the work of the corporation in any way. Our performance will not be affected, we have drawn out a detailed plan for the same.”

The MC Commissioner has been taking bold steps since the time she has stepped into the post. After taking down the 11 am to 1 pm meeting time board off of her office and having an open door policy to meet visitors, she had also taken a test of all data operators of the corporation in the first week of January itself. “We had taken a test of all 29 data operators of MC. We are analysing the test results currently and the services of those who do not pass the test will have to be suspended as well,” Sumedha said.

This is the first time such huge retrenchment has happened from the Municipal Corporation at one go, say employees. “The decision has been taken to increase the income of the corporation and to keep providing for the permanent employees,” said an official of MC.

Services of as many as 11 watchmen, 107 helpers, eight JEs, 30 gardeners, four monkey catchers, 12 peons, seven drivers, 30 sweepers, one zonal taxation officer and several trolley helpers have been terminated in the process. An estimated amount of almost Rs 45 lakh per month was being spent on the salaries of these people. The MC has almost 900 sweepers on rolls and more than 300 permanent employees.

The 249 laid off employees protested outside the corporation’s office raising slogans against the establishment. Joginder Singh, a protestor, said, “Our services have been terminated without any prior notice. We have a yearly contract with a firm that gives employees to the corporation. Our contract was supposed to end on August 1 but we have been fired untimely. Many of us have been employees for several years now. We will not sit quietly and protest for our rights.” The 249 people are all set to walk up to the DC office tomorrow to submit a memorandum of their demands.

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