Pay marshals, pensioners, Delhi minister Kailash Gahlot tells finance dept

NEW DELHI: With salaries of civil defence volunteers working as marshals in city buses and pension of former DTC employees stuck for over two months, Delhi transport minister Kailash Gahlot has written to the finance department to release the payments at the earliest.
In a letter to the principal secretary in finance department, Ashish Chandra Verma, Gahlot said he has received a number of complaints from DTC pensioners and bus marshals in the past few days of non-disbursal of salaries.He said on inquiring from the officials of his department, he came to know that the files were stuck in the finance department.
Sources said the bus marshals and the pensioners were not being paid since November 2022. They added that the salaries of the regular employees were also withheld in absence of approval from the finance department but were released only recently.
Emphasising that these employees had been facing a lot of inconveniences, the transport minister has asked the finance department chief to clear the files and release money to pay the salaries within a week.
According to an estimate, there are more than 13,000 civil defence volunteers and home guards deployed in DTC and cluster-operated buses as marshals by the government. Officials said the marshals are paid between Rs 15,000 and Rs 20,000 per month depending on their seniority.
A large number of bus marshals had protested against non-payment of salaries at Delhi Secretariat on Tuesday. Similarly, there are close to 12,000 retired DTC employees who have not been paid pension for over two months.
Transport department officials said due to the delay by the finance department, the cluster bus operators were not paid for more than three months. It was only after a meeting called by Gahlot and attended by finance and transport department officials that a part of the money was released.
Sources added almost all Delhi government departments have been facing problems on release of funds. The petition committee of Assembly had held several hearings in past few weeks and summoned officials on complaints of non-payment of pension of senior citizens and salaries of staff deployed at mohalla clinic among others.