Real no of safai karmacharais is 43,000: MCD

New Delhi, Jan 19 (PTI) MCD today told the Delhi HighCourt that after physical verification and registration ofbiometric attendance it was found that more than 43,000substitute safai karmacharis are in the panel in differentzones.

Filing a status report before a bench headed by ChiefJustice Dipak Misra, MCD said the figure of substitute safaikarmchari was given as 22,223 and the verification work washanded given to a company named M/s Tansline.

After obtaining the data from the agency and door-to-door verification conducted recently by the company, the realnumber of substitute safai karmacharis has gone upto 43,489.

Meanwhile, the bench directed the police to continueits investigation into the alleged ghost employees and thesubstitute safai karcharies in MCD.

In the last hearing, the police were directed to initiatea separate inquiry to verify the authenticity of more than22,000 safai karmacharis who have been associated with thecivic agency.

Appearing for the police, Standing Counsel NajmiWaziri had told bench that as per the police report during thedoor-to-door verification, 212 unnamed persons out of 22,853ghost employees have been found missing so far whereas in arecent verification it claimed only 12 persons have not beentraced and FIR was registered in this regard.

Earlier, the bench had transferred the probe to CrimeBranch of Delhi Police and directed its Commissioner for athorough investigation into the scam after being dissatisfiedwith the in-house probe report submitted by MCD on the issue.

The bench had also given a direction to find out theactual number of substitute safai karmacharis associated withthe agency.

In November 2009, following an actual verification, MCDhad revealed that 22,853 workers were its ghost employees.

The agency had admitted it was an administrative lapsewhich has been costing the civic body Rs 17 crore every month.

The court was hearing a Public Interest Litigation filedby Jagrook Welfare Society, an NGO, through counsel C SParashar seeking a CBI or an independent agency probe intothe scam.