M A I N   N E W S

Govt flouts own orders
Extra provincial staff in civic body
From Chander Parkash
Tribune News Service

BATHINDA, Dec 6 — Even as the Punjab Government has abolished all vacant posts of non-provincial cadre of the local municipal council to bring the expenditure on establishment at 35 per cent of the real income, it has been putting extra financial burden on the civic body by posting more employees of the provincial cadre here than the required strength.

Fed up with the attitude of the Punjab Government, the local municipal council, in a resolution passed on November 30, urged the Department of Local Bodies, Punjab, to shift those employees to other municipal civic bodies for whom there was no provision in the budget of the local municipal council.

Official sources said that in 1996-97, there was only one municipal engineer, one assistant municipal engineer, one draftsman and there were three junior engineers. Only four sanitary inspectors were working with the local municipal council in 1996-97.

The sources added that though the financial health of the local municipal council failed to improve significantly, over these years the Punjab Government had raised the strength of municipal engineers to two, assistant municipal engineers to four from one, junior engineers to nine from three and draftsman to three from one. The strength of sanitary inspectors had gone up to six from four.

Interestingly, the Punjab Government had created a post of Officer on Special Duty (OSD) in the local Municipal Council for which there was no provision in the Punjab Municipal Act.

The sources said that the local municipal council, which had an annual budget of Rs 28.44 crore for 2000-2001, had been made to bear Rs 25 lakh more on the establishment by the Punjab Government by appointing surplus staff.

On the other hand, the Deputy Director (A), Department of Local Bodies, Punjab Government, in the order issued on March 3 had abolished all posts of non-provincial staff lying vacant in the local municipal council and for which a provision in the expenditure on establishment was made in the annual budget.

The Deputy Director (A), in another order, had directed all municipal councils that whenever an employee of provincial cadre was transferred or appointed in any of the municipal councils, it should be construed that transfer or appointment of the employee had been done after creating that post under the Punjab Municipal Act, 1911, official sources said.

A senior functionary of the local municipal council told TNS, on condition of anonymity, that the Punjab Government had started recruiting the officer cadre employees without taking care of its financial health. But the Punjab Government had abolished about 43 posts of safai karamchari and skilled safai karamchari, which were required for the sanitation of the city that had been expanding at a fast pace.

He alleged that the local municipal council had been spending lakhs on cleanliness of about 19 localities through private contractors instead of recruiting the required number of safai karamcharis.