ROURKELA: More than two years after Rourkela Municipality was upgraded into Rourkela Municipal Corporation (RMC), manpower shortage continues to dog the civic body, its developmental activities and sanitary services.
Sources said, as per the Odisha Municipal Corporation Act, posts of Commissioner and Additional Commissioner (AC) should be in the rank of Additional Secretary and Joint Secretary respectively who would be assisted by a host of OAS, OFS and medical officers besides engineers in different positions.
Former Rourkela MLA Pravat Mohapatra said along with the existing Commissioner in OAS cadre, the RMC is being managed by only 11 officers and rest key positions are vacant. The State Government does not seem serious about development of Rourkela city as posting of additional officers and support staff should have been made immediately after the notification of RMC formation on November 14, 2014, he added.
A senior corporation officer admitted that after formation of RMC, the public expectation towards infrastructure growth, delivery of services and sanitary practices have increased manifold. But, the civic body is unable to spend available monetary resources to the fullest due to whopping vacancies in posts of officers and field level employees besides sanitary workers, he added.
Not only the RMC, other key administrative wings at Rourkela whose involvement are directly related to city’s growth are facing manpower shortage. Rourkela Government Hospital, Revenue Department, Public Health and Engineering Department, Food Supplies and Consumer Welfare Department, Rourkela Development Authority (RDA) are few to name.
At a recent meeting convened by Additional Chief Secretary and Development Commissioner R Balakrishnan, the house had insisted on capacity building of RMC and RDA with pumping of required manpower in the wake of HUD Department, RMC and RDA being made promoters in the Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV), Rourkela Smart City Ltd with shareholding pattern of 45:45:10.