lucknow the sanitary worker scam is getting bigger in the city during the assessment lucknow municipal corporation lmc detected around 180 cases where sanitary workers were still being paid wages over the past year even after they quit the amount paid to these fake workers was rs 15 crore as the assessment of records is under way the number is expected to riselmc has a total annual budget of rs 60 crore for hiring private agencies to supply sanitary workers to sweep roads clean drains and collect garbage from dustbins so far lmc has assessed four of the eight zones in the city and found that private agencies were paid a total of rs 15 crore over the last one year as wages to 180 workers who had quit jobs but existed only on paperprominent areas which come under these four zones are gomtinagar indiranagar chowk nishatganj new hyderabad mahanagar jankipuram musabagh yahyaganj rakabagnj and mawaiya lmc officers got a hint of the scam after the corporation introduced gpsenabled smart watches for sanitary workers these watches keep track of workers on duty when it surfaced that many workers were skipping work lmc decided to assess the attendance records of all sanitary workers in the city on tuesday 13 cases were detected where wages of workers who had quit long ago were being withdrawn from lmc coffers the number climbed to 180 by friday it is expected to rise further as assessment of four zones is underway said an official municipal commissioner indramani tripathi said we will take legal action against all agencies which have tricked us as soon as assessment of all zones is over in a reality check in the areas named toi found residents complaining about shoddy garbage collection and choked drains alok singh of yahyaganj said i dont care how many workers get caught if i am paying all my taxes i have the right to live in a clean and healthy environmentin vishal khand shivam saini said the situation is very problematic here drains in our locality remain choked most of the time now i know why whenever i complained to lmc about drains they said they had sent workers but no one came