ROURKELA: The office of the Deputy Labour Commissioner (DLC), Rourkela Circle has virtually become defunct in the industrial and mining districts of Sundargarh and Keonjhar due to large number of vacancies, abolition of posts and resource crunch.
A PIL challenging the Government’s inertia in this regard is pending with the Orissa High Court.
DLC, Rourkela, whose jurisdiction spreads over Sundargarh and adjacent Keonjhar districts, has been handicapped due to staff crunch.
The key post of the DLC, Rourkela has been lying vacant after transfer of Bhaskar Panda in March 2013 and DLC, Sambalpur RK Behera given additional charge. Similarly, the post of Additional Labour Commissioner is also vacant after death of BK Patnaik in February, 2014.
Several posts were abolished in the DLC, Rourkela at different points of time. Now, there are large-scale vacancies against the sanctioned posts. Those posts are Assistant Labour Officer (ALO), Rural Labour Inspector and 10 clerks.
As far as infrastructure is concerned, the DLC has only one four-wheeler and his office is not yet modernised. Stacks of files and records are gathering dust.
In-charge DLC RK Behera said they are managing the office with available resources.
Vice-president of Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) and Odisha unit general secretary Bishnu Mohanty, who filed the PIL two years ago, regretted that in recent years, the State has witnessed three to four fold industrial growth, but Government reduced labour department’s strength to one-third.