Civic body employees snap power supply in protest

Rachna Khaira

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, July 18

Despite receiving monthly salaries, Municipal corporation employees continued their strike on the fourth day and demanded to reinstate suspended employees facing a Vigilance probe. The employees had demanded that the suspended employees should be placed in Jalandhar and all investigations against them should be closed with immediate effect.

“Since the new government took over around one-and-a-half-year ago, we were never paid salaries on time. Also, the government keeps harassing staff employees, including officers, by repeatedly announcing their transfers and suspensions even before probe. We have now demanded to reinstate the nine employees suspended by the Local Bodies Minister without holding any probe,” said Chandan Grewal, president of the MC Sanitation Employees Union.

To show their anger, the employees even switched off the electricity supply of the MC building and did not even allow anyone to switch on the power. They also refused to handover the keys of the generator room to police officials who went to them for reconciliation at the behest of the Mayor.

The entire MC office wore a deserted look due to locked rooms. However, city Mayor Jagdish Raja and some visitors dared to remain in the office till late afternoon without the power supply.

While speaking to The Tribune, Raja said though he was trying to increase revenue sources within the MC to end dependency of salary on the local government, there was a dire need to boost up the recovery of arrears.

“I have taken up the matter with the Municipal Commissioner and urged him to lay responsibility on officials for fails to meet their recovery target. This will help us to attain economic independence,” he said.

Vigilance ends probe into illegal buildings

Following a meeting of Jalandhar MP Santokh Chaudhary and Congress MLAs with Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh recently, the Vigilance Department has held up further probe into the illegal building case.

While confirming this to The Tribune, Daljinder Singh Dhillon, SSP (Vigilance), Jalandhar, said the department was at present focusing on buildings which were already inspected by the technical team. “First, we will wait for reports of the buildings inspected earlier and then we may further continue the probe,” said Dhillon.

However, when asked as to whether the department will initiate a probe against the nine suspended officers, he refused and said the officials were already facing a departmental action.