The Hindu        09.10.2014    

2,500 permanent staff for urban development

Minister for Urban Development Vinay Kumar Sorake has
said that the government will begin the process of recruiting 2,500
permanent employees to the department within three months.

Addressing
a gathering at a meeting in Mangalore City Corporation office on
Tuesday where he received petitions from people, he said 5,240
sanctioned posts in the department were lying vacant. Of them, the State
Finance Department has approved recruitment for 2,500 posts of official
and clerical cadre.

In addition, the Cabinet has
approved to recruit 1,000 pourakarmikas (civic workers) on a permanent
basis. Their recruitment process would also begin soon. By recruiting
officials, clerks and pourakarmikas, the method of recruitment through
contract and outsourcing would be phased out.

Title deeds

The
Minister said the government would soon issue a circular in connection
with granting title deeds to those who had built houses on government
land within the jurisdiction of urban local bodies. Once owners of such
houses got title deeds the urban local bodies would issue door numbers
to them.

He said the Union government had held
preliminary discussion with urban development Ministers of States in
connection with selecting cities for its smart cities project. Criteria
for selection included population, heritage tag and presence of ports.
If they were taken into account, Mangalore, Udupi, Hubli-Dharwad,
Belgaum, Bijapur, Mysore and Bangalore deserved to be included. List of
cities from the State was yet to be finalised, he said.