Panchkula MC faces shortage of staff, more than 50 posts vacant

The vacancies include the post of chief sanitary inspector, naib-tehsildar, kanungo, two posts of patwaris, two office superintendents, two legal assistants, two tax inspectors, one personal assistant, three draftsmen, four junior engineers (JEs) in civil engineering department, three JEs in electrical engineering department, four accountants, nine account clerks, six assistant sanitary inspectors and eight office assistants.

“We are short of staff in almost all the branches, which has been hampering the basic functions of the corporation. Leave aside the senior posts, we do not even have the adequate support staff, leading to piling up of files. A municipal engineer is supposed to have at least three junior engineers to assist him, but here we are carrying out work with only one JE,” says Manendra Singh, executive officer, MC.

The Superintending Engineer (SE) holds additional charge of Faridabad, MC, and is required to be present in Faridabad for three working days, sparing only two days for Panchkula. The post of executive engineer is vacant.

The corporation officials say the problem has been persisting ever since some departments were shifted from the Haryana Urban Development Authority (HUDA) to MC. The corporation currently provides all basic civic amenities, including roads, sanitation, street lights, parks and solid waste management.

The expanding jurisdiction of the corporation was not supplemented with the hiring of more staff. “The staff members continued to retire, and no government notification was issued for hiring of new ones. As a result, we are compelled to shoulder multiple responsibilities, which affects our work,” says an official.

Residents of Panchkula have been complaining about the inability of the corporation to deal with stray dog menace, waste management, sanitation, battered roads, pending payments to park development societies and maintenance of street lights.

“We need staff to monitor the ground work, be it repair of roads, or collection of property tax, or other sanitation work.

But with insufficient number of junior engineers, accountants, or sanitary inspectors, it is difficult to supervise the work round
the clock. The process of tax collection also suffers,” says Singh, adding that there is an urgent need for qualified people to supervise certain areas, including waste management.

Municipal Commissioner Jagdeep Dhanda says, “We have invited applications for some posts where the appointing authority is the commissioner, MC, and the interviews are under way. But there are a number of other posts which are vacant, and only the government can conduct appointments for them. Recently, we wrote about our requirement to the government. At present, we are struggling with an acute shortage of staff in almost all branches.”