CHENNAI: In what could be a recruitment drive by bending the rules, the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority is using the services of Electronic Corporation of Tamil Nadu (ELCOT) to hire its staff on contractual basis by paying a part of their salary as commission.
The recruitment drive, which is being done without any transparency, is allegedly employing those on Nominal Muster Roll (NMR) as planning assistants, engineers and drivers on contract basis through ELCOT. Official sources said that the recruitment process is for temporary postings only. “Planners have not been appointed. We have taken in people on contract for one to six months,” said official sources.
Interestingly, sources claim that ELCOT, instead of recruiting the persons directly, goes by the bio-data sent in by the administration wing of the CMDA. These bio-data belong to relatives or aides of employees, which is being questioned by the Association of Professional Town Planners.
It is learnt that Rs 1 crore per year is being paid to ELCOT and the manpower agencies. “Advance of six months per employee is paid to ELCOT. This also includes Central and State Goods Service Tax as service charges,” said sources.
As per the norms, the recruitment to government posts is done on deputation, direct recruitment, by promotion, transfer of service or consolidated pay basis through open advertisement and employment exchange. As per the NMR rules, the workers have to be paid wages per day and should not exceed the Public Works Department (PWD) schedule of rates published every year in June. All these rules have been ignored.
Official sources defend the recruitment. “It is a contract for supply of manpower for short duration. For jobs of permanent nature, the CMDA has written to the Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission.” But Association of Professional Town Planners (APTP) president KM Sadanand has termed the entire process as illegal and demanded a probe by a high-level committee. “It is a well-established fact that the CMDA requires manpower. They have been blaming the shortage of manpower for the last 10 years, including when the Moulivakkam building collapse happened,” says Sadanandh. “They should have gone through the employment exchange. Why are they paying a huge sum as commission to a contract agency and sub-contract agency?”
The CMDA sources claim that for an ordinary post, if the salary is Rs 26,000, the contract employee gets only Rs 16,000, nearly a loss of Rs 10,000 to the exchequer. “They could have gone in for recruitment directly rather than going through the backdoor,” said sources.
Interestingly, many contract workers are continuing for more than four years. “This violates the reservation policy of the government,” say sources. For the last 26 years, CMDA has been functioning without service rules. It was in 1992 that the CMDA amended the rules, which govern the recruitment and service of the staff for the city’s prime urban planning agency. Failure to notify it has led to occasional bending of the rules and also confusion.
Factfile
Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority is using the services of Electronic Corporation of Tamil Nadu (ELCOT) to hire its staff on contract basis.
The staff are hired through contractors, mostly IT companies.
Every year the CMDA pays H1 crore to manpower agencies for the recruitment process.
As per the norms of government, the recruitment to government posts is done on deputation, direct recruitment, by promotion, transfer of service or consolidated recruitment basis.