Local bodies on state mercy for staff pension, salaries

Lalit Mohan

Tribune News Service

Dharamsala, March 21

Hundreds of employees of about 55 municipal councils are facing problems in getting pensions and other retirement benefits. The problems are likely to increase in the coming years as the councils have meagre resources vis-a-vis increasing burden of salaries and pensions.

Sources said the councils have to pay their salaries and pensions from their own coffers and the state government was not liable for it.

The income sources of the councils were property tax and other fee levied on maintaining and disbursing record of citizens. However, the amount collected by councils through property tax was not enough even to pay salaries and pensions.

In the Una Municipal Council, the total taxes are just about Rs 1.78 crore. The pension liability of the Una council was about Rs 60 lakh and salary Rs 1.44 cr. The state government has to chip in about Rs 2 crore to meet the expenses of the council. This was the state of most of the municipal councils.

The employees said in 1992, the then Shanta Kumar government had issued a notification to include all employees of the councils in the state cadre. However, the notification had not been implemented as yet and employees continue to be in the local bodies. The employees said if the government did not include them in the state cadre, they would have no option but to go to court.

Minister for Urban Development Sudhir Sharma admitted that the local bodies did not have enough funds to pay pensions and salaries to employees. Even now the salary burden was being borne by the state government. However, since the pension liability of the local bodies was increasing, it was creating problems. “We will move a proposal before the state government to include all employees of the municipal councils under the state cadre,” the minister said.

The number of municipal councils has gone up in one decade as the successive governments have classified many small towns as urban local bodies.

However, most of the urban local bodies have failed to generate their own sources for carrying out development and are still dependent on the state government for even paying the salaries and pensions.