LUCKNOW: The Lucknow Municipal Corporation (LMC) has found that over a dozen private agencies, hired to supply contractual sanitary workers, have duped it of Rs 7.65 crore in the last three years.
According to officials, these agencies charged Rs 300 from LMC as the daily wage for a worker but paid only Rs 200.
Municipal commissioner Ajay Dwivedi has directed LMC officials to issue recovery notices to these agencies.
This is the fifth ‘scam’ detected by LMC officials in the last one year.
Official said around 28 contractual agencies had been underpaying their workers. These companies altogether took Rs 16 crore from LMC for payment of wages but actually paid only Rs 8.35 crore in the three years.
The scam was detected when the commissioner ordered a probe after finding sanitation work unsatisfactory at many places in the city during inspections.
He asked zonal officers to verify workforce and payments.
“Each sanitary worker is eligible for a daily wage of Rs 308. However, the probe found that only Rs 200 or less were being paid to them by private players,” said officers.
“Recovery notices are being issued to these agencies asking them to return the extra amount (Rs 7.65 crore) within two weeks, failing which LMC will seize their bank accounts,” the municipal commissioner said.
Dwivedi said the provision for making digital payments directly to the bank accounts of sanitary workers is also being made to avoid such scams in future.
