Citizens are going to suffer as time pass by due to shortage of manpower in Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC). Already struggling to cope with rising expectation and changing landscape that demands more manpower, civic body is finding it difficult to deliver services owing to existing vacancies that is nearly 66 per cent against the regular posts that numbers 11521 across all groups. Further on top of that the last year's GR from Maharashtra Government has further compounded problems as through it State has put total ban on new recruitment. As of date vacancies exists in all ranks, from Group-I down right to lowest cadre, the sanitary staff. Against the sanctioned strength on NMC establishment all cadres is severely under staff, barring the Teachers who are in excess owing to dwindling numbers of students after Right to Education (RTE) opened doors of private schools to one and all. But barring teachers other critical sectors like Town Planning, Public Works Department (PWD), Health Department, sanitary workers all is witness reduced number. With each day as staff retires the superior officers are in bind and also worried as the civic services has taken a hit.

 

 

 

While to meet the rising expenses that of salary and establishment cost, civic body is raising tax component, the satisfaction level of citizens as to services provided by NMC is nose diving very fast. As of October 1, 2020, in Class-I the NMC Establishment had 199 sanctioned post of 96 were vacant and in Class-II cadre from 77 sanctioned about 54 posts are vacant. Now in Group-III the number of vacancies is stupending 2034 from sanctioned 3791 which means nearly 53 per cent vacancy. Only there is excess Teachers category (Sanch Manyata) as against 755 sanctioned posts the present strength is 1041. The most worrisome is situation in Class-IV where 1857 posts are vacant form sanctioned 2754 and in sanitary workers further 82 remains vacant from 3945 on roll. Then adhoc posts of sanitary workers is 4407 of which nearly 2258 have not been fulfilled till date thereby affecting the general cleanliness in city.

 

Sanitary workers role is quite important, more so in aftermath of outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic and yet NMC is struggling to cope with the situation due to severe shortage of manpower as State Government wants to trim down establishment cost for which staff strength reduction is the best answer with them. Explaining the situation Vijay Zalke, Chairperson, Standing Committee, NMC, in 2017 a querry was sent to Maharashtra Government seeking clarity on Staffing Pattern and direct recruitment process. While there was no reply from State, the September 4, 2020, GR, virtually sounded death knell for civic bodies as fresh recruitment was banned totally. Now with nearly 50 employees retiring every month the situation is going out of hand and ultimately citizens are going to suffer for no fault of theirs. The core sectors of NMC is now seeing dwindling strength of manpower even as citizens complaints seeking redressal of their problems are increasing manifold.

 

Managing the situation is becoming very difficult for administration and hence its imperative that State Government take a relook at its ban on fresh recruitment. A holistic policy on staffing pattern at civic body needs to be formulated as local bodies cannot escape their responsibility of providing basic civic services to tax payers. Zalke further referred to recent statement of Rajesh Tope, Health Minister, who announced recruiting 10,000 persons for toning up health delivery and said similar step is also required for civic body who ultimately are endowed with mandate of all services and that also includes health sector.