Since December last year, more than 13,000 primary teachers of schools run by the North and East municipal corporations have not been paid salaries. The desperation over how to make ends meet and resentment against the authorities spilled over to the streets last month, when 1,500 teachers marched from the Civic Centre to the Delhi Secretariat demanding that they be paid.
Such agitations, unfortunately, are not alien to the capital, which has seen teachers take to the streets at least four times this year. The story — this time and almost every time before it — remains the same: cash-strapped civic bodies blame insufficient funding from the AAP-run Delhi government for the delay, while government officials said they paid what is owed to the three civic bodies, each run by the BJP.
Stuck in the middle are the teachers: while the East body owes Rs 120 crore to its 5,433 teachers, the North owes Rs 153 crore to 7,802 teachers. The civic bodies are reeling under a budget deficit of Rs 3,000 crore and Rs 3,250 crore respectively. With their bills mounting and the situation at home growing more dire by the day, teachers told The Indian Express that a strike from work could be their last resort.
‘salary our right’
When 46-year-old Khem Chand, a teacher at a North corporation school, died of a heart attack last month, teachers made a link with non-payment of salary. Chand, from Rajasthan’s Alwar, had been working at 64, Khambha Nigam Vidyalaya in Chandni Chowk for the last 20 years. He earned Rs 50,000 a month, but hadn’t received his salary for at least two months. His wife Hemlata (44) said he had been worried over paying bills. Sitting in their MCD flat in New Usmanpur with her four daughters and a son, she said she is yet to reconcile with what happened: “My husband was worried over constant calls from the bank to pay our loan installments.”
On January 17, the two had gone to a hospital to get medicines for Hemlata, who had a cold and cough. Chand was to head to school from there, but he suffered a fatal heart attack at the hospital. Blaming the North Delhi Municipal Corporation for his death, she said, “We hadn’t paid our electricity bill for three months, and our power supply was on the verge of being cut. My husband said he would borrow money from someone — I found the bill in his pocket after he died. He was the sole earning member….”
Of her five children, three are still in school. Basharat Hussein, Chand’s colleague, said, “The family had to take his body to Rajasthan to conduct the last rites… So we teachers got together and helped them with the finances.” He added, “Chand is dead, but it could have been any of us… we have to pay our children’s school fees too. Salary is our right, yet we have to beg for it.” In 2016, when sanitation workers had gone on strike and refused to pick up garbage over non-payment of salaries, teachers from the two corporations — also unpaid for two months — had joined their agitation.
“If safai karamcharis go on strike, the problem is visible — there’s garbage on the streets. But when teachers go on strike, it does not affect authorities. We don’t want the children to suffer but without timely payment, we lose the motivation to teach,” said Mahipal Singh (37), who teaches at a school in east Delhi’s Patparganj. His wife, too, teaches in a school under the East Delhi Municipal Corporation. For the time being, the couple are relying on money borrowed from friends and relatives. Teachers also alleged that they are yet to get arrears — between Rs 1.5-2 lakh per teacher — since 2016. North Delhi Municipal Corporation mayor Preety Agarwal said, “We have released a part of the salary and will release the pending amount soon. But we need to look at the larger picture, which is the corporation’s financial crisis… because of which not just teachers, but other departments are also hit. We need to create more revenue-generating projects so that this problem is permanently solved. The Delhi government should also pay as per the recommendations of the Fourth Finance Commission.”
Shifting blame
Addressing teachers on February 27, Parvesh Sharma, the standing committee chairman of EDMC, said the corporation is helpless as it has no funds: “Aap ko kapre chahiye the aur aap pahuch gaye jewellery ki dukan. We have not stopped your salary; it is the Arvind Kejriwal-led Delhi government which is not giving us Rs 9,000 crore — our share under the Fourth Finance Commission.” But Dilip Kumar, who has been teaching at a school in Bhajanpura for 22 years, isn’t buying it: “This blame game has been on for years now. When we go to the corporation, they blame the government. The government says it has given the money. If they cannot run schools, they should shut them down.”
Set up in 2009 to review sharing of taxes and finances between the Centre, Delhi and civic bodies, the Fourth Delhi Finance Commission (for 2011-16) had recommended a higher share in taxes collected by the state government to MCDs to bolster their finances. Following trifurcation of the unified MCD in 2012, the North and East civic bodies slipped into an acute financial crisis. Instead of 5.5% under the third commission (2006-2011), the fourth commission report had recommended 12.5% share in state taxes, duties, fees and toll. The report was tabled in December 2015 by the AAP government. But the government said it will implement the fourth committee recommendations once the Centre increases its share of taxes — Delhi’s share of Central taxes has remained at Rs 325 crore since 2001-02. The government also maintained that it has released enough money to the corporations. “Nobody knows how the MCDs are draining this money. I have asked the Chief Secretary to tell the corporations that the government is ready to take over primary schools,” Deputy Chief Minister and Education Minister Manish Sisodia told The Indian Express.
An East corporation official claimed that had the fourth finance committee recommendations been implemented in 2013, the corporation would have got Rs 3,000 crore for the years 2013-14, 2014-15 and 2015-16. A writ petition was also filed in the Delhi High Court on January 5, with the counsel for the North and East corporation maintaining that the delay in salaries is because of non-release of funds under the fourth finance commission by the Delhi government.
Accusing the Delhi government of “playing politics” over the issue, Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari said, “The corporations are also working for the same set of people who elected the AAP to power. They should give the money and let the corporations function as a local body.” Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee chief Ajay Maken claimed the total plan outlay to the MCDs has decreased from 11.76% in 2013-14, when the Congress was last in power, to 8.75% at present.
“While there has been stepmotherly treatment by AAP to the corporations, the BJP cannot run away from its responsibility. During President’s Rule in 2014, the Delhi Budget was presented by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. The plan outlay for MCDs was cut from 11.76% to 10.27%. But this does not mean the present fiscal crisis of the East and North civic bodies is just because of non-cooperation of the Delhi government. It is also because of failure of the MCDs to utilise resources such as advertisements, parking, toll collection, property taxes and land banks,” he said.
Revival attempt
In 2016, to bail out the ailing corporations, the government had released Rs 374 crore under the Municipal Reform Fund (MRF). The Delhi cabinet approved Rs 145.30 crore for the North, Rs 110.70 crore for the East and Rs 118 crore for the South municipal corporations. The money was allocated based on a formula worked out by the Urban Development Department — which gave 50% weightage to population, 25% to area and 25% to population density for each corporation — on the basis of the third finance commission’s recommendations. “Two of the three corporations, North and East, do not qualify for allocation under MRF,” the 2016 Cabinet note had read.
However, owing to the crisis, funds were released for the two civic bodies, said an official. Last year, the East and North corporations sought a loan from the government. “For the East, we asked for a loan of Rs 200 crore and for North, of Rs 350 crore. We are yet to get the loan,” said Yogendra Singh Mann, public relations officer of the two MCDs.
Unlike the North and East civic bodies, the South corporation has been paying its 5,500 permanent teachers on time, mainly because the civic body is not facing a budget deficit. This has prompted teachers to demand unification of the civic bodies. “When the South corporation can manage to pay teachers, why can’t others?” said Ajay Gupta, a teacher at an MCD school in Rohini.
It was in April 2012, under the Congress government, that the MCD was trifurcated into North, South and East for administrative efficiency. Twelve administrative zones were divided into six zones in the North, four in the South and two in the East. “Before trifurcation, we never faced such a problem. With no end in sight to the fight between the AAP and the BJP, it is best that the corporations be unified again,” said Vibha Singh, vice-president of the association of municipal corporation teachers.
Former commissioner of the unified MCD, K S Mehra, acknowledged that the fund shortage arose because of trifurcation. “Earlier, salaries would be paid on the first day of the month. If the corporation hadn’t been trifurcated, resources wouldn’t have been divided and salaries would have been paid on time,” he said. After the trifurcation, the government had released Rs 150 crore in 2012-13 to the three corporations as an interim measure.
Former Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, on the other hand, said trifurcation cannot be a reason for lack of funds. Stating that the South Delhi civic body is running efficiently, she said: “If trifurcation was the problem, it would have reflected in the first few years. Why are the corporations short of funds now? It is because of the inefficient way in which the system is being run. It is also important for the state government and corporations to work together. When the Congress was in power, we would provide funds to the corporations so that people did not suffer.” With no immediate solutions in sight, Khem Chand’s widow is finding it hard to keep hope alive. “We will have to vacate the flat (provided by the civic body) in two years. Since it was an untimely death, we won’t receive the full pension amount… I have borrowed money to manage expenses, but I don’t know what to do once that runs out,” Hemlata said.
