The Hindu         12.01.2011

Corporation staff seek review of staff pattern

Employees of the Kozhikode Corporation have urged the government to revise the staff pattern drawn up 40 years ago.

Senior officials said staff shortage was overloading them with work, which had a bearing on their efficiency.

The existing roll of regular employees is 420 while the number of contingency staff unassigned with municipal governance is over 750. Thus, most of the officials are forced to do work of other departments, they said.

The Revenue wing has the largest strength of around 125 employees, followed by the Town Planning and Engineering sections with a little over 100 staff and the Health Department with another 100-odd staff. There are other miscellaneous departments such as accounts, council, medical and dispensary sections.

Departments such as the Jana Seva Kendra are tasked with multiple activities despite its functioning going online and computerisation of records at the Corporation office. A few counters of the section deal with about 400 people daily for various needs.

Things have not changed though the Calicut Development Authority (CDA) was dismantled and its movable and immovable property attached to the Corporation through a government order on March 31, 2007.

Then, the 47 employees of the CDA were asked to join the Corporation. Now, the number has dwindled to 32 but even now they, including engineers, have not been inducted into the Corporation rolls.

Need for revision

At present, all vacancies had been filled following recruitment by the Public Service Commission. Earlier, posts of bill collectors, lower division clerks, assistant engineers, health inspectors and junior health inspectors had remained vacant. The staff pattern had to be revised every five years to meet the requirement of the residents every year, a spokesman said.

“The problems are expected to increase when the ad hoc administrative set up at the zonal offices of the erstwhile grama panchayats of Elathur, Beypore and Cheruvannur- Nallalam is fully amalgamated with the main office. The government had issued an order on working arrangement till March 31, 2011,” Deputy Mayor P.T. Abdul Latheef said.

However, the council had passed a resolution urging the government to bring in a new staff pattern with additional posts in all categories, he said.

Officials said a junior superintendent had been given charge of the zonal office after the panchayat secretaries returned to their parent department.

The existing staff would be absorbed into the Kerala Municipal Common Service soon. But there should be at least five revenue officers in different grades, two for the main office and three each for the zonal offices, an official said.