KARAIKAL: The local body employees have demanded the UT government pay salary from a more open-source of revenue.
Employees of Karaikal municipality and five commune panchayats Thirunallar, TR Pattinam, Neravy, Nedungadu, and Kottucherry have not been paid in the past several months due to a shortage of funds and lack of grants from the government.
The confederation of local body employees have been allegedly told that there is still a shortage of funds to allot a grant for the salaries and their demand may be considered in September during the annual budget. The employees were also told to stay on the payroll generated from internal revenue generation till September, the employees claimed.
A representative of Thirunallar commune panchayat workers, S Ulaganathan, said, "The taxes collected from residents are not sufficient to pay us all. Even if we try to scrap as suggested by the government, we may manage just for a month but not till September. We request the authorities to switch to a system where we can get from the overall income generated rather than receiving salary from just the local body revenue."
In Puducherry, the salaries of employees, except topmost officials working in local bodies, are usually given from the revenue generated by the local body from the collection of taxes such as property tax, drinking water tax, fees such as trade licenses and stamp duties, and from income through auctions.
A Divyanathan, a representative of TR Pattinam commune panchayat workers, said, "It is not possible to survive from local body revenue as it is unstable due to delays and reluctance. We are struggling to make the ends meet and are indebted to banks, private lenders, and loan sharks."
When internal revenue generation is below par, the department of local administrations used to allot grants for the local bodies to pay their employees. The employees, however, are miffed that they do not get such grants at times. Around 400 employees working in six local bodies are affected due to such a quandary for years now. The employees have been already resorting to protests in the past few months.
B Shanmugaraj, a representative of Karaikal municipality workers, said, "The municipality is equally struggling for revenue compared to commune panchayats. It is struggling to collect taxes and there is nothing we get at the end of the month.
We request to create more sources or more open-source of income so that our salaries do not depend internally."