Panaji, Feb 21 (TOI): Nearly 80 posts in the Corporation of the City of Panaji have been lying vacant, while some have also lapsed, thereby affecting the functioning of the civic body, said officials. CCP officials said that existing staff members are overburdened and critical responsibilities such as sanitation and garbage collection are hampered.
According to data obtained through Right to Information, CCP has a sanctioned strength of 406 full-time workers, out of which 77 full-time posts are vacant. The delay has led to 13 posts getting lapsed since they were not filled for more than two years, data shows.
“Without this staff, sanitation and garbage collection work is suffering,” said a municipal officer. “Nobody seems bothered and the government has not revived the lapsed posts either.”
The situation is not a recent development, with some of the vacant posts getting lapsed as far back as in 2014, and in fact, all the 13 posts have lapsed and not been filled for three years or more.
CCP had written to the director of the department of urban development in October 2017 with a proposal to revive the lapsed municipal level posts. CCP commissioner Ajit Roy, in the letter, had informed that the CCP council had passed a resolution supporting the revival of the lapsed posts and had asked the government to “take up the matter at the earliest.”
Till date the proposal remains in limbo. The lapsed posts include a superintendent, eight watchmen and two peons. “The process of filling the proposed posts has not started,” said a senior CCP official who did not want to be named.
Meanwhile, CCP remains short of five supervisors, four lower division clerks and 58 workers who can be categorised as road workers, sweepers and garden workers.
It is not just the municipal cadre and lower staff posts that have been ignored. For more than eight months, CCP had been left without a deputy commissioner, with the department of municipal administration appointing a full-time commissioner only in January.
Councillors say that the absence of a full-time deputy municipal commissioner had overburdened CCP commissioner Ajit Roy and had brought administrative decisions to a standstill.