Pending wages rock session; Oppn, ruling corporators corner Mayor

RAJAHMAHENDRAVARAM : Pending salaries of sanitation workers for the last three months rocked the budget session of Rajahmahendravaram Municipal Corporation here on Friday morning.

On the occasion, the internal differences in the TDP came to the fore with TDP Mayor Pantham Rajani Sesha Sai getting cornered by her own party MLAs, corporators and MLC, as they criticised and held the Mayor responsible for the pending wages. 

The budget session showed how the municipal contract employees, especially computer operators and sanitation workers, were bearing the brunt of the internal rift between Municipal Commissioner V Vijayarama Raju and Mayor Sesha Sai. 

City Urban MLA Akula Satyanaryana and MLC Adireddy Apparao walked out of the council hall in protest against the lukewarm response from the Mayor. 

The Mayor tried to move on to budget session several times, without answering the questions raised by the MLAs, MLC and TDP corporators, after repeated requests to address the salary issue. The TDP leaders successfully implemented a strategy by questioning the Mayor, without letting the Opposition members to question her in the council regarding the pending salaries.

In all the 50 wards of city urban and rural divisions, around 400 permanent sanitation workers, 900 contract workers and 16 computer operators were not getting their salaries for the last three months, despite having sufficient budget with the corporation.

Responding to the issue, Municipal Commissioner claimed that the Mayor did not clear the file and hence, the salaries were pending. The council members questioned the Mayor as to why the file was not cleared, though a resolution was passed unanimously in the last council session about the pending salaries.

“I cannot give salaries without getting file clearance from the Mayor. Meanwhile, considering the financial difficulties of workers, we facilitated salaries mentioning in records as advance for two months. Now, I cannot provide more advance as it will invite audit problems,” Vijayarama Raju clarified.

According to sources, the Mayor appointed her personal assistant as computer operator, who was not given salary for eight months by the Municipal Commissioner, reportedly because the computer operator does not belong to the RMC. In fact, the Municipal Commissioner suggested to the Mayor to appoint contract employees as computer operator, which she did not pay heed to. 

This led to a rift between the two, following which the Mayor did not clear the file regarding issuance of pending salaries to other computer operators.  

Despite all requests made by the council members, from both TDP and YSRC, the Mayor stood firm and did not give any explanation in regard to the file. 

Finally, Rural MLA Gorantla asked the Mayor to clear the file immediately, for the RMC and the TDP government would get defamed if the issue is dragged on. Later, Gorantla requested the council members to move on to budget session, stating that debating more than an hour about the salary issue will be an insult to the council.