People take initiative to clean the town
JOWAI: A few like-minded people of Jaintia Hills including the Branch Manager, Birla Insurance Company, Nehemayah Tyngkan from Iooksi, along with his friends and members of the Jaintia Journalist Association and the Fire & Emergency Services, Jowai Traffic Police among others voluntarily took part in the cleaning and disposal of collected garbage in Jowai on Saturday .
The Jowai Municipal Board (JMB) Employee’s Association has stopped the cleaning and disposal of wastes from Iawmusiang due to non-payment of their eight months’ salary thereby garbage collected in Iawmusiang has created inconvenience to the public besides being hazardous that may seriously affect the health of the people.
On Saturday morning, eight vehicles (Bolero pick up) were hired by the people of Jaintia Hills for disposal of the waste materials from Jowai town.
The Deputy Commissioner West Jaintia Hills, Arun Kumar Kembhavi lauded the initiative taken up by Tyngkan and his friends.
Kembhavi said, “Are we going to be perennially dependent on the state government to clean our houses or are we going to become architects of our own future? The collection charge by JMB is a mere Rs 30 per household or 1 Rupee per day which is as good as free.”
“There are 5079 households as per the data of the localities themselves which again is vastly understated. So Rs 30 for 5000 households is only 1.5 lakh per month which is the only revenue of JMB. Whereas the salary for our 53 (not 90 as appeared in certain sections of media) employees would come to Rs 8.9 lakh per month”, the DC added.
The DC further said that most of the employees are getting a meager Rs 4000 to 6000 as their salaries per month.
If you include the electricity charges, vehicle maintenance, diesel bills, miscellaneous expenses it comes to minimum Rs 15 lakh per month. So how are we going to manage Rs 13.5 lakh in a month?” he questioned
The JMB doesn’t have any parking lots or market complexes from where it can collect rent unlike Tura municipal board and Shillong municipal board.
The major revenue used to come from Toll gates which were closed following the Supreme Court’s order.
The JMB had resorted to sub-letting JMB buses to schools and colleges from where Rs 6000 per month was generated which comes to only Rs. 25000 for 5 buses.
This is not the first time that the JMB employees resorted to strike.
In August 2015, the District Administration intervened and got Rs 51 lakh sanctioned from the State government to clear the previous 6 months’ salaries.
Now again last 8 months’ salaries are still pending and the state government is yet to sanction the same.