No salaries if garbage tax not paid, civic employees told

Vijayawada: An urgent circular issued in the name of the Chief Medical Officer in-charge of the municipal corporation on Friday warned the indoor and outdoor staff to pay the garbage tax and submit the receipts to that effect to the data entry operators in the public health department in their respective circles with immediate effect.

The circular stated that all the permanent employees of the medical department, workers, maistries, sanitary inspectors, sanitary supervisors, ward health secretaries, ward sanitary secretaries, admins, sanitary permanent and outsourced staff should pay the garbage tax and mention in the proforma before submitting it along with the receipt to the data entry operators for uploading by Saturday.

If they do not pay the garbage tax, they would not be paid the salary for the month of August, the circular warned.

Sharply reacting to the urgent circular, CPM State executive member Ch Babu Rao took strong exception to the highhanded behaviour of the officials to threaten the employees with the salary cut if they did not pay the garbage tax which is against the Constitution.

Babu Rao in a statement here on Saturday demanded immediate withdrawal of the circular which is nothing but violation of labour laws. "It is like fence eating the crop that the government is violating its own laws," he remarked.

He recalled that the sanitary workers worked hard during the pandemic to clear the garbage and instead of giving them exemption from the tax, the administration is forcing them to pay it. "It is highly atrocious that the government is indulging in such activities much to the detriment of the interest of the employees."

He said that either the government or the officials have no right to stop the wages to the employees.

Referring to the collection of garbage tax from citizens, he said that the local body was not serving notices to the citizens for collection of garbage tax and they did not make it clear whether it is garbage tax or user charge. How the government could collect user charge from the citizens without hearing their objections, he wondered.

Mentioning the CLAP (Clean AP), the CPM leader said that the garbage collection contract was handed over to a corporate company paying Rs 62,000 per vehicle. It is highly objectionable to threaten the employees with salary cuts even as they were collecting garbage for the benefit of the corporate companies.

He demanded immediate withdrawal of the circular and warned that a massive agitation would be launched by the employees.