Adil Lateef
Srinagar, Mar 6: The Housing and Urban Development Department (H&UDD) has violated the guidelines set by the Union Ministry for Housing Urban and Poverty Alleviation for implementing Housing For All (HFA) project.
The H&UDD has advertised 44 posts under various specializations including urban town planner and urban infrastructure specialists for HFA project but as per the notification various cities selected under HFA have been merged by the concerned department which is completely against set guidelines of the HFA.
Joint Director, H&UDD on March 4, 2016 advertised these posts and single posts have been advertised for cities with more than 10 lakh population and the same number of posts have also been advertised for cities with 35,000 urban population, which is against the set guidelines.
As per the guidelines issued by the Union Ministry for Housing Urban and Poverty Alleviation, there should be 2 to 4 specialists/ experts in a city depending upon the population for HFA. Also for example, Jammu and Srinagar cities, where population is more than 10 lakh, the H&UDD can engage more experts for proper implementation of the project HFA but as per the advertisement notification Srinagar, Budgam and Ganderbal has been clubbed and only one post for each specialization has been advertised and same has been done for Jammu, RS Pura and Udhampur.
As per the population of selected cities approved by Union Ministry under HFA, the urban population of Srinagar is 12,06,419, Budgam 15,338 and Ganderbal 28,233 which 12,49,990 in total. Similarly the urban population of Jammu 5,76,198, RS Pura 15,197, Udhampur 84,015 totaling 6,75, 410. While as the cities with less urban population like Kupwara and Handwara (35, 371) has also single post for each specialization.
The other cities like Anantnag, Shopian, Pulwama, Bijbehera, Kishtwar, Ramban, Doda and Bhaderwah have also been clubbed despite the fact that the population, topography and geography of these cities is entirely different and the person engaged has to cater the vast area for the implementation of the project HFA.
Besides the population criteria, another parameter has been violated by State H&UDD is regarding the age factor. According to advertisement notification, 3 to 5 and 5 to 7 years experience is required for each specialization and the upper age limit has been kept at 40. But as per the guidelines of concerned Union Ministry, keeping vast experience and other factors of flagship programme (HFA) in consideration, 50 years has been fixed.
The H&UDD Department as per the advertisement notification has in the subject mentioned only State/ City level technical experts but posts under Divisional level category (serial number 3, 4, 6 and 8) has also been advertisement in the same notification which is totally against the guidelines of concerned Union Ministry as there is no Divisional Level post in the project HFA.
Another violation of the guidelines by the State H&UDD Department has been done in salary structure at various levels. According to set guidelines, each State level technical expert has to get Rs. 85,000 and for each city level technical expert for cities having population more than 10 lakh is Rs. 70,000 (for post graduate degree holder), Rs. 50,000 (for graduate) and Rs. 40, 000 (for diploma holder) but in the advertisement, Rs. 45,000, Rs. 35,000 and Rs. 25,000 has been set for these posts respectively. Similarly the salary structure of experts for cities with population below 10 lakh and less than 5 lakh has also been violated.
According to official sources, the concerned Union Ministry has nominated Jammu and Kashmir Housing Board (JKHB) as nodal agency for implementation of HFA and the Managing Director of the JKHB is nodal officer who is supposed to advertise the posts. But, due to unknown reasons, the Joint Director Planning, H&UDD Civil Secretariat has advertised these posts without caring for set guidelines.
The advertisement of fresh posts has come at a time when both Jammu and Srinagar benches of State High Court has stayed the termination of nearly 20 city-level experts engaged in Mach 2015 and the case is sub-judicious. Ironically, the H&UDD Department has neither restored the terminated experts nor released their salaries as directed by the High Court recently.
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