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.