Seeking to do away with the present contract system for sanitation in the city, the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) has decided to directly deal with workers involved with the job.
Speaking to the presspersons here on Friday, GHMC Special Commissioner Navin Mittal announced the idea to have workers forming into batches of seven members each, taking up the work and receiving payments directly from the corporation.
“This concept will come into effect wherever the strike is on and otherwise also, once the present agreements with the contractors expires in the month of March it will be implemented,” he said.
The impact of strike by sanitation workers at present was felt in the circles IV, V, VII, VIII and partially in circles IX and X.
The corporation is spending around Rs.200 crore every year for sanitation from which contractors involved in the initiative take their commission of 5 per cent and pays the rest to the workers. “The payments are not properly reaching the actual workers and hence we are looking at ensuring that they get paid properly,” Mr.Mittal said.
Accordingly, the workers had been asked to form group of seven each and approach the GHMC to get enlisted. Once this done, eight bank accounts including one for the group and seven for the individual workers will be opened and the payments would be directly credited to them.
Tax saving
The move also aims at escaping the taxation net and ensuring more money to the workers. “As per the service rules, if the turnover of any entity is above Rs.10 lakhs, then service tax to the tune of 10.3 per cent has to be paid,” he said.
Accordingly, of the Rs.200 crore per annum sanitation budget, the tax component works out to Rs.20 crore and if the contractors are to be paid about 10 per cent to 15 per cent, then Rs.20 crore to Rs.30 crore goes into the kitty of contractors. “By forming groups of seven each, the workers will not have to pay the tax and a total of Rs.50 crore is assured to reach them,” Mr. Mittal pointed out.
1,000 supervisors
The GHMC will have one supervisor for every three groups to monitor the work and a total of 1,000 supervisors are to be pressed into service and function directly under the control of corporation.
