Through dint of hard work Indian-American becomes highest-paid public employee in New York City

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An Indian American sewer worker named Bhavesh Patel has earned a total of $539,098 in wages last year after he put in 1,992 hours of overtime on top of his 2,086 regular hours.

The New York City employee worked close to 80 hours a week for all 52 weeks last year, thus working 16 hours every day, in and around the New York City sewers.

According to a New York Post report, the city’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) said that Patel’s job is not an easy one as the sewers of New York City run 24 hours a day and carry more than 1 billion gallons of wastewater.

It is not unusual though for a sewer worker to be among the highest-paid employees, as in 2011, another sewer worker had made $771,841 however, was not getting a raise for 16 years, according to an Inquistr report.

According to a Daily Mail report, there was a nine-year back pay stemming from a newly-settled contract, which followed a 10-year dispute with workers who had been working without a new contract since 2007.

This is what accounted for the overtime amounts while employees are already given double the time when working overtime during holidays.

Patel is now the 29^th highest paid public employee in the state of New York, as published by the watchdog group Empire Center, on their website.

Patel was also among five DEP stationary engineers who ranked on the Top 10 overtime recipient list.

Patel is among 207 other stationary engineers working for the DEP, to be the highest-earning sewer worker this year, with nearly half of them putting in more than 400 hours of overtime while 37 people made more than $100,000.