The cash-strapped Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike is spending nearly Rs 22 crore a year on salaries of 1,373 people occupying various posts that are not sanctioned by either the state government or the BBMP itself.

Most of them are originally from different government departments, while a few are contract employees hired by the Palike.

To do away with such posts, the BBMP Council recently approved new Cadre and Recruitment (C&R) rules framed by the Standing Committee for Administrative Reforms. The draft rules have been framed based on the number of required posts, employees, their educational qualifications and salaries.

The rules allow only a fixed number of employees in each section and department. So any excess salary withdrawal will immediately come to notice of the officials of the Accounts Department.

“The existing C&R rules were framed in 1971 and 1977. With the (implementation of) new rules, the burden of unnecessary staff can be avoided as salary withdrawal can be monitored easily,” V Vagish, chairman of the committee, told Express.

Interestingly,  when the committee started consolidating the number of employees, it did not get all information from the BBMP Administration Department. “We had to take the list from the Chief Accounts Office and get the details of the number of employees drawing salaries. When we compared the list with the sanctioned posts, we found 1,373 employees are working in unsanctioned posts and drawing salaries amounting to about `1.82 crore a month,” a source said.

A BBMP source said there were 17,991 sanctioned posts in the Palike, including those which were not required anymore.

At present, there are 11,418 employees in the BBMP, of whom 9,406 are the employees of BBMP itself and 639 are State government employees, including IAS and KAS officers, on deputation. There are also 1,373 employees working in various grades, whose posts are not sanctioned by the government.

Many of them had come with “influence letters” from people occupying powerful positions in the government, a source said.

In many departments, the committee noticed that there is a huge gap between sanctioned posts and the number of employees. For instance, in the Engineering Department there 616 engineers working in different sections, whereas the sanctioned posts are only 451.

In the Town Planning Department, which has only three town planners posts’ sanctioned, 38 people are working.

“An electrical engineer is working as a town planner. How can an engineer work as a town planner?” Vagish asked.