The BJP-led North Delhi Municipal Corporation (NMC) does not have the money to pay salaries to doctors, nurses and sanitation workers but has the “audacity” to increase the funds for councillors, Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) chief spokesperson Saurabh Bhardwaj said on Monday.

The Delhi Government does not owe even a single rupee to the NMC but the BJP-ruled corporation has to return about `6,500 crore to the Delhi Government, he said.

“The corporation has not paid the salaries of its employees for three to six months. Doctors and nurses in the hospital, sanitation workers, teachers in their schools have not been paid for months but the NMC is increasing funds for councillors,” he said.

The AAP leader criticised the north corporation, saying that the NMC decided to give funds to the tune of `50 lakh to its councilors, that too, at a  time when they already have a loan of `crore to pay off. All the three municipal corporations of the national Capital - the NMC, the South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) and East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC) - are led by the BJP.

Meanwhile, north Mayor Raja Iqbal Singh on Monday met with Lieutenant-Governor Anil Baijal and said that Delhi Government did not implement fourth Delhi Finance Corporation (DFC) recommendations due to which the civic body faced a loss of `968.97 crore.

In the meanwhile, fifth DFC was also constituted and the deep financial crisis present in NMC was discussed and deliberated upon before the commission by the corporation. The commission was also satisfied that the major source of mismatch between revenue and expenditure in the NMC is the hospitals and as such a special grant-in-aid to be provided to the NMC, he said.

However, these recommendations were outright rejected by the Delhi Government, while implementing the fifth DFC and as a result NMC was pushed further deeper into an already severe financial crisis, he added.

The mayor further said that the civic body will lose around Rs 4,673 crore due to non-acceptance of these recommendations. The outstanding dues to the Corporation kept on mounting and stood at Rs 6,253 crore. as on July 30 this year, he said.