New Delhi: The city government today told Delhi High Court that it has already released Rs 256.47 crore to East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC) as salary of safai karamchaaris as well as grant for primary education.
The Delhi government made the submission in an affidavit, filed before the high court, in which it has said the amount was released on June 12, subject to conditions including no fresh recruitment of group IV employees like beldars and safai karamchaaris as well as no fresh regularisation.
The conditions also stipulate that "safai karamchaaris and beldars engaged on temporary basis will be discontinued in a phased manner within a year", as per the affidavit.
The affidavit was placed before a bench of justices Mukta Gupta and P S Teji in compliance of the court's June 12 order that some funds be released to EDMC for paying its employees.
EDMC, represented by senior advocate Sanjay Poddar, told the court that salaries up to May 31, 2015 have been paid and it has already removed over 21000 metric tonnes of garbage from areas under it and will remove the rest by June 21.
Pursuant to the submissions, the court directed the corporation to continue paying salaries to its safai karamchaaris and to inform the Delhi government well in advance whenever there is shortage of funds so that payments can be made without any gap.
The court also directed the corporation and the city government to sit down and resolve the issue of funding and listed the matter for further hearing on July 16, saying it "needs to be monitored".
Meanwhile, advocate Sanjeev Ralli, who had on last date shown pictures of garbage accumulating in east Delhi areas, said that funds released by the city government would be sufficient for only a month or two.
The court was hearing two PILs seeking payment of wages of the EDMC employees as well as cleaning up of the area under the corporation's jurisdiction.
