More 800 employees of the oldest civic body of Dhanbad, Jharkhand Mineral Area Development Authority (JMADA), have threatened to stop water supply to over 10 lakh residents of Jharia and Katras from Thursday, July 30, unless they are paid their salaries, due for the last three months.

The decision to boycott work and stop water supply from the Jamadoba water treatment plant, Topchanchi Lake and Dharmabandh pit was taken during a meeting of JMADA at Jamadoba on Sunday.

Md Aslam, an employee of the authority’s water division who attended the meeting, said, “In the time of a lockdown, when expenses have increased, including transport expenses, denial of salary is beyond comprehension. We received salaries only for two months in the last five months, beginning March.

Another employee pointed to cumulative salary dues of 42 months. “Over the last decade, salaries have not been paid intermittently due to a funds crunch. This has led to a cumulative backlog of over 42 months till date,” he said, adding that they were now demanding all their arrears be cleared immediately.

“We also demand pending retirement benefits of superannuated employees and promotion to the qualified employees,” said another employee.

JMADA was established in 1984 as per an act of the then Bihar government following the merger of water and mines boards to look after the sanitation, health and water supply in suburban areas of Dhanbad. Tonnnage cess, royalty cess, stamp duty, water supply tax and sanitation tax were its main source of revenue.

But a majority of the these taxes were withdrawn one of the one by the government. Now, water tax is the only source of funds for the JMADA, which now has an employee strength of about 800.

JMDA technical member Indresh Shukla said the funds crisis was continuing. “We have limited funds but we will pay salaries of one month to all employees within a week. We are awaiting a nod from the state government for the release of money from a fund of Rs 7.8 crore deposited as bazar fee,” he said.