Srinagar, Jan. 13 -- The employees of Srinagar municipal corporation(SMC) have not received their salaries from the past two months. Many employees of the SMC among officers, administrative staff, drivers, cleaners, asset caretakers, safai-walas and thousands of daily wage and contractual employees, told HT that they have not received their salaries of November and December. The employees said that the financial section of the corporation has been told that no funds from the government have been dispensed with for the salaries of the employees. "Around 6,000 employees of the corporation are without salaries as there are no funds. The absence of monthly salaries has put us in very difficult circumstances," said an employee of the administrative section of the corporation. He said that normally the corporation would get funds for salaries in advance for a year. "It has come to fore that the previous leadership of SMC diverted the funds to pay the contractors from the amount which was meant to be for the salaries," he said. Another employee of the corporation, a driver, said that he had taken a home loan and his monthly increment would be deducted from his salaries. "I have become a defaulter as I could not pay my instalments on time. My financial situation is very difficult now. I have taken credit to run my day to day home expenses," he said. Not only the regular employees but thousands of daily wagers who take care of the cleanliness of the city as they collect waste by going door to door are bereft of any financial support. "They would hardly pay us 10,000 rupees a month and now we are not even getting those. Some of us have been paid the month of November while many others are without any salary. We have no savings. How will we take care of our families," said a daily wager. Another employee said that the SMC would pay a part of salaries from the income generated from sanitation fees but that income was hit when the corporation, instead of collecting it manually, made it online. "People are not paying the sanitation fees online. There was also technical snag with the website through which the fees were paid for over seven months causing the people to avoid paying any fees," the employee said. HT contacted SMC's parent department, housing and urban development commissioner secretary Mandeep Kaur, SMC commissioner Faz Lul Haseeb and chief accounts officer Rafiq Shah but received no response. Around 60,000 employees of education department right from Rehbar-e-Taleem teachers to principals in Jammu region are still awaiting their January salaries. "Usually, the employees of the education department get their salaries by 3rd of every month but its January 12 and we have not received our salaries," said Devraj Thakur, a senior government lecturer, who is also national secretary of Akhil Bharatiya Rashtriya Saikshik Mahasangh. Thakur said that the disbursing officers told them that the grants have not been released to them and hence the delay. "Tomorrow is the festival of Lohri, which is largely celebrated across Jammu region but this government, which had the audacity of proposing doubling the salaries of MLAs from Rs.1.50 lakh per month to Rs.3 lakh per month besides doling them out all the perks and perquisites, has not released our salaries," said a female teacher on request of anonymity. Repeated calls and messages to director school education, Dr Naseem Javaid Choudhary, through the day remained unanswered....