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Kathmandu,Tuesday January 25, 2000 Magh 11th, 2056.
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Birgunj sub-metropolis spends around Rs 2.5 m on salaries
-By a Post Reporter
BIRGUNJ, Jan 24 - Birgunj
Sub-Metropolitan City Office spends 2.2 to 2.5 million rupees a month on the salaries of
its 781 employees, according to officials.
According to some in the city
office, several employees have been hired in excess of its practical needs.
The controversy became public
when the Town Council decided, by a majority vote, to remove employees working on daily
wages, monthly wages and on contract basis last week.
A clear division lies between
the 400 permanent employees on the one hand and 381 temporary workers hired on daily and
monthly wage basis on the other.
There are 16 officer level
employees while the rest range from assistant to lower-level employees.
It is noteworthy that the
number of employees is far greater than necessary in many places. Yet, in areas where more
employees are required they have not been hired.
The worst-affected occupation
is that of sweepers. The Town Council has decided to fill the posts of 174 sweepers, but
it has so far appointed only 45 permanent and 30 temporary sweepers. The posts of 99
sweepers are lying vacant whereas the office has appointed 293 sweepers on daily-wage
basis.
Ward chairman Narendra Shah
says employees could be hired on daily-wage basis only after the vacancies for permanent
posts are filled. However, the mayor has made provisions for corruption by hiring people
on the daily-wage basis. He says bills are made for 300 people but payments are
distributed to only 200 sweepers while the surplus money is divided among the chief and
the sanitation officers.
Deputy Mayor Krishna Murari
Rauniyar holds similar views. He says the mayor has misused the fund of the office by
appointing people on a daily, monthly and contract basis in almost all the posts including
sweepers. Rauniyar alleges that the mayor has appointed a large number of his followers
despite the fact that 400 to 500 employees would have been sufficient for the
sub-metropolitan city office.
Mayor Bimal Srivastav, however,
says the appointments were made only after it became necessary to appoint them. He said
genuine Nepali citizens were not available for the required number of sweepers and
therefore, Indians were hired.
Deputy Mayor Rauniyar says the
City Council has decided to remove almost half of the total employees as it felt employees
in such large numbers were unnecessary.
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