Indian Express 27.11.2009
MCD ‘ghost’ workers will have to return salary: Mayor
A day after the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) acknowledged that the civic body has been paying salaries worth Rs 17 crore per month to over 22,000 ‘ghost employees’, Delhi Mayor Kanwar Sain has said all offenders, once identified, will have to “return” the money that they have drawn from the MCD in the form of salaries without putting in any work.
Sain said he had discussed the matter with Lieutenant Governor Tejendra Khanna and decided that not only will the offenders face penal action but the amount lost to pay salaries will also be recovered from them.
A 24-page report submitted by MCD Commissioner K S Mehra has already been sent to Raj Niwas, and a meeting with L-G Khanna will take place this week for further discussion on the action MCD must take now, Sain added.
“One thing that has been decided is that a time-bound CBI inquiry will be initiated in the matter and all those found guilty must return whatever amount has been paid to them,” Sain said. “How offenders will return an amount as high as Rs 204 crore for a year is not the Corporation’s worry — it is the government’s money and must be returned.”
The MCD House is, meanwhile, witnessing a difference of opinion over the matter, with Leader of the House Subhash Arya saying on Thursday that the Corporation must wait before initiating a CBI inquiry. Arya said the MCD should first order a probe by its own Vigilance department and a subsequent report by the commissioner within a month. “If the Commissioner fails to submit the detailed report on the offenders etc, the CBI should be roped in,” Arya said.
The internal inquiry however, leaves room for doubt, feel the Mayor and many leaders of the MCD opposition. “If our own officers probe a scandal created by some Corporation officials, there are chances that internal pressures might result in a biased report,” Mayor Sain confirmed.
The Mayor has ordered that the disbursing of salaries to all missing employees be stopped with immediate affect. Although the report was submitted by the Commissioner on Wednesday evening, the agency is yet to identify the 22,853 ‘ghost employees’ and find out details like names, designations, work tenure and bank records of the offenders and verify whether they have actually ever worked for the MCD.
The agency will also investigate who helped in opening salary accounts for these employees even after the Electronic Clearance System (ECS) was initiated in 2008. Under the ECS, a bank account can only be opened by furnishing an ID proof and a confirmation from his workplace. For now, the MCD has decided that only the 1,04,241 employees registered in the biometric system and physically reporting for work will be paid salaries till the investigation is complete.
