CHANDIGARH, Aug 14 — The municipal corporation has terminated the services of 33 employees hired during the Covid-19 pandemic for contact tracing and home quarantine duties, continuing its manpower rationalisation drive.
The staff — including data entry operators, helpers and multi-task workers — were appointed in March 2020 under Chandigarh administration orders to work in a dedicated “contact tracing and home quarantine cell.” They were paid from the “Special Grant under Covid-19” fund, but their contracts expired on July 31.
“The monthly expenditure on these 33 employees was around ₹8 lakh. After the UT administration declared the end of Covid-19, we could no longer use funds from the Covid grant, even though ₹18 crore remains under it. Given the fiscal crisis in MC, we decided not to renew their contracts,” officials said.
The decision comes despite the MC’s general house recently approving an agenda to clear pending salaries for these employees, unpaid since February 2025. Councillors said the termination was against the spirit of the House’s approval.
This is the latest in a series of downsizing measures by the civic body. In December 2024, nearly 200 contractual employees aged 60 and above were let go. Earlier this year, nine sanitary inspectors were terminated, along with 90 outsourced fire and rescue services staff — including 47 firemen, 16 drivers, three data entry operators and other support workers — and 332 outsourced multi-task workers at tubewells citywide.
Officials said the cuts are driven by rising outsourced manpower costs and align with Punjab Governor and UT Administrator Gulab Chand Kataria’s directive to focus on revenue generation through manpower rationalisation.
Data presented at the General House meeting on November 23 showed MC’s total staff strength had grown from 8,587 in 2023-24 to 9,748 in 2024-25 — an increase of 1,161 employees, mostly on contract, in just seven months. “Who are these employees and where are they working?” former mayor Kuldeep Kumar Dhalor asked during the meeting.
A manpower audit by the Indian Institute of Public Administration, New Delhi, is expected to begin soon. The six-month exercise will examine staffing patterns, identify fake employees and flag salary irregularities.
