MARGAO
As most of the Safai Karmacharis have raised the issue of civic bodies not paying salary on time, the municipal bodies have attributed the delay to the stoppage of octroi revenue following the introduction of GST regime since 2017.
The issue of delayed salary payments to the Safai Karmacharis came to the fore at a meeting National Commission for Safai Karmacharis chairman M Venkateshan had with Chief Officers of Municipal bodies from South Goa at the South Goa Collectorate on Friday. South Goa Additional Collector Sanjit Rodrigues was also present.
The Chief officers of some of the Municipal bodies from South Goa pointed out they have been struggling to pay the salaries of the employees, including the safai karmarcharis for want of revenue. They pointed out that Octroi, which was a major revenue for the Civic bodies was stopped in view of introduction of GST in 2017.
They further maintained that the Dearness component of the employees also affected the payment of salaries, with a Chief Officer pointing out that prior to 7th Pay commission, the Civic bodies used to get 120 percent, but the DA component has now been reduced to mere 27 per cent after the 7th pay Commission. “This is a huge difference which is not compensated by the government. If income of some Municipalities is Rs 10 crore annually the salary expenditure is more than that. This gap is widening. House tax and other taxes remain the same but Salary has almost doubled after 7th Pay Commission. The retirement benefits are not paid in time due to insufficient funds in the coffers”, the Commission was informed, with the Chairman promising to take up the issue with Chief Minsiter.
The Chairman along with the officials later visited Cine Lata area, which is home to Safai Karmacharis of the Margao Municipal Council and interacted with them.
The National Commission for Safai Karmacharis is a statutory body that investigates the conditions of Safai Karamcharis (waste collectors) in India and makes recommendations to the Government of India. NCSK was constituted on 12 August 1994 as a statutory body for a three-year period under the NCSK ACT, 1993. The panel investigates pecific grievances and takes suo moto notice non-implementation of programmes or schemes in respect of any group of Safai Karamcharis; and takes decisions, guidelines or instructions, aimed at mitigating the hardship of Safai Karamcharis measures for the social and economic upliftment of Safai Karamcharis.
