Journalism of Courage
With an eye on introducing expertise and professionalism in its cadre,the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) has come up with its own recruitment rules. It has upgraded the minimum qualification for 466 posts for its 17,000 civic staff.
Once the proposal gets a go ahead,the chief accountant that manages the finances of the civic body would hold an MBA degree in Finance along with being a registered Chartered Accountant (CA) or an ICWA. Earlier,the minimum qualification for the post was CA or ICWA and second-class Masters degree in Commerce with specialisation in Accountancy.
Similarly,the civic health chief or medical officer of health (MoH) should be an MD in Medicine or Preventive and Social Medicine that was not compulsory earlier.
A city engineer,who plays a major role in planning development of the city,will have to hold a post-graduate engineering degree with specialisation in structural engineering,roads and bridges or environment against the present criteria of being a BE in civil with at least five years of experience.
This will be for the first time that the PMC will have its own recruitment rules as all the recruitments so far were being done according to the state government norms. These rules are prepared as per the directions of the state government. It took over a year to study the needs of the civic body based on which the rules have been framed, said former PMC Labour Adviser Nandkishore Jagtap,who headed the team for deciding the recruitment rules.
All the department heads were consulted to explain skills needed for the civic staff for various posts, he said.
The idea is to bring in more skilled employees in civic service with professional attitude,Jagtap said,The civic employees should be visionary so as to give the best in the interest of the city.
The proposal has also upgraded the eligibility criteria for the intake of Class IV staff. There was no educational qualification required for Class IV staff,but now the minimum qualification will be Class IV. The criteria for recruitment of Class III staff mostly comprising clerks has also been upgraded from SSC pass to graduation while the earlier requirement of having a Marathi typing certificate will continue.
PMC Employees Union leader Mukta Manohar said she was unaware of the changes being proposed by the civic administration. We were never consulted while framing the recruitment rules. The civic administration cannot upgrade the minimum educational qualification criteria that was not required to the post, she said.
However,the proposal also pushes for changes that would enable civic staff to hold the post of octroi chief,land and acquisition officer which were so far being filled on deputation from the state government.
