Alleging “loot” in the tax collected by the North Delhi Municipal Corporation (NrMCD), the Aam Aadmi Party questioned Bhartiya Janta Party on Saturday, which is ruling the civic body about its failure to release salaries of the employees.

NrMCD’s leader of opposition Vikas Goyal claimed that despite the increase in house tax collection by Rs 100 crore, the BJP-ruled civic corporation is not giving salaries to the employees. “Where is this money going?” he asked.

“The BJP ruled MCD has collected house tax of about 645 crores this year, which is about 100 crores more than the previous year’s figure of 548 crores. Even their number of taxpayers has increased by 5000. The biggest question that arises here is that despite continuous gains, why is the BJP not paying salaries to its MCD employees? I want to ask the North MCD Mayor Shri Jay Prakash and BJP State President Shri Adesh Gupta that where has this money gone? They are neither paying the salaries nor doing any work so the people want accountability.” the AAP leader said.

Goyal demanded the corporation to present “a clear report” disclosing the sum of house tax collected.

“For the last several months the employees of the BJP ruled MCD is around protest because it has not paid their salaries. In the time of the Covid 19 pandemic, these employees work relentlessly for the people of Delhi but the BJP has completely failed them,” he added.

“Whenever we asked the Bharatiya Janata party about why they are not paying the salaries, they say that they do not have the money. But it is increasing the funds for the mayors and councillors and others of the BJP ruled MCD. The BJP has transformed the MCD into a den of corruption and that is why in the last by-election the Aam Aadmi Party won 4 out of 5 seats,” Goyal said further.

Responding to the allegations, NrMCD Mayor Jai Prakash said that the AAP is rattled by the achievements of the corporation and allegations of corruption shows the Kejriwal government’s restlessness.

“They (AAP) themselves admitted that we were able to collect surplus house tax while the pandemic is still on a spread. This is troubling them,” he stated.

Prakash told The Statesman that the corporation has cleared the salary backlog of all employees till January amounting to 568 crores while 300 crores will be cleared further by April end.

“We have also released salary of February of sanitation workers and in-process to release the salaries of healthcare workers. Everyone will be paid by month-end,” he claimed.

For the last many months, the employees of NrMCD including healthcare and sanitation workers are facing incessant delay in receiving their salaries. The employees have to resort to protest in order to push the civic body for immediate dispersal of their payments due for several months.

While the BJP blames AAP for the discrepancy blaming the Kejriwal government for not releasing the MCD’s share of taxes, the AAP, in return, blamed the BJP for patronising corruption which is making the corporation unable to release the wages.