Ineligible firemen on Chandigarh MC’s payroll: Audit

The director general of audit (central), Chandigarh, on Thursday revealed that the municipal corporation (MC) is making irregular payments to seven ineligible firemen, worth thousands of rupees every month, and directed the civic body to recover these payments from its employees.

In the report, the central audit agency said scrutiny of records revealed that seven officials/firemen of the fire branch are posted in non-hazardous duties (in MC’s accounts and transport branch) instead of fire branch, but still, the employees are being paid “risk allowance”, “uniform allowance” and other allowances associated with fire branch.

The audit clarified that risk allowance is presently only given to central government employees engaged in hazardous duties or whose work will have a deleterious effect on health over a period of time. The audit observed that MC, in April 2022, had revised the rate of risk and hardship allowance for firefight staff at ₹2,700 per month for level eight and above employees, and ₹3,400 per month for level nine and above employees, in place of the earlier set allowance of ₹150 per month.

“Payment of risk allowance to the firemen who were posted in wings other than fire branch was inadmissible,” the audit report mentions.

The auditor directed the corporation to calculate the payment of risk allowance, uniform allowance, and other allowances provided to the ineligible employees who performed their duties in branches other than the fire branch, and to also recover the payments under intimation to audit.

As per the report, the recovery amount of each staff varies from ₹5,400 to ₹83,700. A whopping ₹3.29 lakh needs to be recovered from these seven employees, the report says.

It is pertinent to mention that city councillors had raised objections multiple time on firemen being posted in other branches of the civic body. The audit report comes at a time when a two fire officials were arrested by the CBI in a bribe case last week.