Charsadda TMA facing financial crisis

CHARSADDA: Tehsil Municipal Administration (TMA) in Charsadda is facing a severe financial crisis as the employees of have not been paid salaries for the last three months while the civic body has received notices for disconnection of electricity supply to streetlights and tube-wells in the city.

Sources said that the roads and streets could be seen full of garbage in the limits of Charsadda TMA, the hometown of Caretaker Chief Minister Muhammad Azam Khan, as neither the employees were working due to non-payment of salaries nor they had fuel for the sanitation vehicles to lift the trash.

The vehicles, they added, were also rusting due to parking for the last several days under the open sky while there was a feeling of anger and anguish among the TMA workers for not being paid for the last several months.

They said that the Charsadda TMA needed immediate release of a financial package of Rs75 million to pay the pending salaries to workers, pensions, utility and fuel bills.The sources said that officials of the relevant departments had time and again contacted the caretaker chief minister to help release the much-needed funds but to no avail.

When contacted, the employees said that the revenue of the Charsadda TMA was negligible, which was not enough to meet the cost of high fuel prices and electricity.They said that the provincial government had not given any special fund to the TMA to meet its expenses in the heads of salaries, pensions and others.The employees said that most of the workers had now stopped coming for duty due to non-payment of salaries for three months.