Phagwara Municipal Corporation grapples with staff crunch

Municipal Corporation Phagwara, having 50 municipal wards, is presently facing an acute shortage of staff due to which residents, who pay regular taxes, are being deprived of several essential facilities in the routine that the MC is otherwise supposed to provide.

The Tribune Correspondent observed that out of the total 68 posts of clerks and other officials, 58 sanctioned posts were lying vacant in the civic body here.

Punjab Local Bodies Minister Dr Ravjot Singh who visited the corporation’s office on Friday had to face a tough time when several residents showered him with their problems, which included encroachments, non-functioning of streetlights in several localities, potholed roads and open violation of the rules.

Though the minister assured the residents of addressing their problems soon, without sufficient staff one wonders how would that be possible?

When contacted, MC Commissioner Navneet Bal who is also holding the post of ADC (General), told The Tribune here today that the post of the MC Joint Commissioner and Secretary were vacant, too, while out of the two posts for SEs one was vacant. Additionally, four out of the five sanctioned posts for assistant engineers, six out of the eight sanctioned posts of junior engineers, four of the five posts of building inspectors, all four posts of superintendents and two of accountants have been vacant for a long time. Moreover, 35 posts out of the 40 sanctioned posts of clerks have been vacant for the last several months.

Interestingly, the MC Commissioner claimed to have written to the Director of the Local Bodies Department several times with the last request being sent on September 27, but nothing was done about the vacancies, he said.

Meanwhile, the Local Bodies Minister of Punjab, Dr Ravjot Singh, told The Tribune that the department would soon be fully computerised to facilitate residents. He was replying to a question related to residents facing issues while depositing different taxes online, especially property taxes and sewerage bills via apps such as Paytm or Google Pay etc.

Dr Ravjot also assured the people of getting encroachments removed in the area under the jurisdiction of the Phagwara MC. He also promised the people of Phagwara that he would have all the potholed roads repaired on priority.

Former minister Joginder Singh Maan, District Planning Board Chairperson Lalita Saklani, Improvement Trust chairman Kashmir Singh Malhi, Ashok Bhatia, Market Committee chairman Tawinder Ram, Santosh Kumar Gogi, Lal Chand Lally and other prominent members of society were present on the occasion.