April grant: UT releases Rs 35 crore for MC to pay salaries to staff

CHANDIGARH: The UT administration has finally released the first grant of Rs 35 crore for the current financial year to the municipal corporation (MC), Chandigarh. The grant is for April — recently, the UT had decided to give grant on monthly basis to the civic body. The UT has also made it clear to the civic body that the grant should be used to pay the salaries of the municipal employees.
The salaries and wages of the MC’s employees is over Rs 40 crore per month and the civic body will have to manage rest of the amount on their own. According to sources, the MC will have to draw from its earnings to pay the rest of the salaries.
“Since, the given money is meant for the salaries and wages, we have instructed all heads of departments not to send bills to the account branch for any kind of payments, except the emergency maintenance works. Every payment requires the written approval of the senior officers of the MC,” an official of the MC said.
Paucity of funds is likely to affect development projects, said sources. “At present, our main focus is on the maintenance works, we have been asked not to prepare details of any project. In fact, some of the works that have been allotted in the past have not started yet and are not likely to be started in the near future too,” said an official of MC’s engineering department.
Significantly, after the announcement of the financial grant to the UT administration by the ministry of finance in February, UT administration had announced Rs 425 crore financial aid to the civic body for the current financial year. But with tigtening of the budget for the Covid-19, at present MC is liable to get Rs 416 crore. Sources also said further reduction in the budget is likely and it will be a big challenge for the MC to manage its finances.