Sept. 6: The Guwahati Municipal Corporation (GMC) has moved Dispur seeking provincialisation of its employees in order to reduce the financial burden on the cash-starved civic body.

GMC deputy mayor Dipankar Ghosh said if the employees of the corporation are provincialised, the state government would have to make a budgetary provision for their salaries.

This would be a big relief for the corporation, which is facing an acute financial crisis, he said.

The corporation spends nearly Rs 2 crore every month to pay salary to its nearly 3,000 employees. Out of the corporation’s annual obligatory maintenance expenditure of Rs 32.4 crore, around Rs 23 crore is spent on payment of salaries.

“The government has provincialised the employees of the panchayats. If the same is done for the corporation, it can use the amount now spent on staff to execute development projects,” Ghosh said.

He said mayor Gunabati Teron and commissioner Rajesh Prashad have also raised the matter before the Third Assam State Finance Commission.

At a meeting organised by the commission to discuss the financial problems of local bodies and devolution of grants and taxes to them, Teron and Prashad urged the former to make strong recommendation to the government in this regard.

Ghosh said the corporation would also submit a detailed memorandum to the commission within a few days.

“The memorandum will highlight various issued plaguing the corporation, including release of an outstanding amount of Rs 178 crore due from the government and compensation of the loss suffered from closure of checkgates,” he said.

Supporting the move, the general secretary of Guwahati Municipal Karmi Sangha (GMKS), Chandan Sarma, said the state government, in its submission made to the 11th Finance Commission, has requested sufficient funds to enable it provincialise at least 60 per cent of GMC’s employees.

“Unfortunately, the Centre did not provide the fund. Now we feel that the state government might make budgetary provision to provincialise GMC employees as it was done in the case of employees of panchayats under the panchayati raj system,” Sarma said.

The Sangha, in a memorandum submitted to the commission, has sought payment of 90 per cent of the total amount of taxes collected from the city to the GMC as its share after reduction of 10 per cent as cost of collection as is done in West Bengal.