Corpn. zonal offices crippled by staff shortage

By T. Nandakumar

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, SEPT. 16. The Thiruvananthapuram Corporation is reeling under a severe staff shortage which has crippled the functioning of the zonal offices catering to the new areas annexed to the city from five suburban panchayats. The administrative crisis has disrupted several civic functions and threatens to derail development projects.

Routine works like assessment of newly-constructed houses and issue of licences and certificates have been affected in the former panchayat areas of Ulloor, Kadakampally, Attipra, Nemom and Thiruvallam. Almost all the zonal offices are forced to function with a skeletal staff strength, even as hundreds of posts in various key departments remain vacant.

Applications are piling up in the Town Planning and Revenue Departments. Following the failure to assess newly-constructed houses, hundreds of families are unable to apply for power and water connections and ration cards. A new reform insisting on the Corporation Secretary's clearance of applications for assessment has only complicated the situation.

``Earlier, the Revenue Officer was authorised to carry out the assessment and fix the tax. The previous Secretary who introduced the reform was shunted out following the change of Government. With the Secretary's post remaining vacant, there is no one to assess the houses. As a result, applications are piling up,'' says Mr. Punjakary Surendran, secretary of the Kerala Building Designers Organisation.

The acute staff shortage has also affected the distribution of unemployment dole at several zonal offices. The Nemom and Thiruvallam zonal centres have been functioning without telephones for several weeks after the service was disconnected for default of payment. Residents complain that they are forced to run from pillar to post for licences, certificates and registration of birth and death.

A senior Corporation functionary said a majority of the posts in the local body were lying vacant. Apart from the key posts of Secretary, deputy secretary, superintending engineer, council secretary, health officer Grade 2 and assistant engineer, there are vacancies for 73 LD clerks and bill collectors, 41 Junior Health Officers and 107 contingency workers. Most of the zonal offices are currently manned by just two or three staff.

Following the merger of the five panchayats with the city, the Corporation had converted the panchayat offices into zonal centres to decentralise operations and extend the civic body's services to the new wards. Charge officers were posted at the zonal offices to ensure its smooth functioning. In addition, a team of officials from the Town Planning, Engineering, Health and various other departments in the Corporation was deployed to convene a meeting at each of the zonal offices once every week. But the system failed to work out.

``The only thing that the skeleton staff at zonal offices do is receive applications. None of the appeals are being processed,'' says a resident. The one-day building permit scheme that was extended to the zonal areas is effectively functioning. But in the absence of a mechanism for assessment, citizens are left high and dry.

The Corporation budget for the current year had earmarked 25 per cent of the outlay for the 24 new wards annexed from the pancyayats. Councillors feel that many of the budget proposals could not be taken up if the staff shortage problem was not addressed immediately.

Corporation sources said the problem was expected to be sorted out with the Government soon. They said the ongoing computerisation and networking scheme would also help to streamline the functioning of the zonal offices.

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Section  : Southern States
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