Disarrayed UT Govt departments

 

A general rumpled state of affairs of most of the UT Government Departments does not auger well for the image and efficiency of the Government. It hardly needs to be underlined that through these departments only, the administration runs and Governmental policies, schemes, public welfare measures, public services and utilities are implemented and followed. Developmental projects , providing , maintaining and running infrastructure of different hues are run and looked after by these departments. Health , power and water departments are such without which day to day life would normally become impossible to live. Having given this brief prelude is only for reiterating how much concerned the Government must remain consistently about providing the reasonably required manpower to its departments and offices . Through these very columns, we have voiced our concern in respect of over 40 per cent of posts lying vacant in our premier hospitals including those of specialist Doctors . Shortage of Doctors on account of not filling even sanctioned posts lying vacant causing enormous problems for the Hospital management as also the resultant hardships for patients, continue to be ignored. Taking the case of Power Development Department and Jal Shakti Department, the overall staff position is in a hotchpotch and in a mare’s nest. Problems of daily waged employees in both these departments created due to flawed, accommodative and fallacious policies of the (then ) successive State Governments continue to haunt both these departments. Even now, it is more or less the same position. It is to be believed that even the active posts of linemen continue to be abysmally less in the Power Development Department (PDD) than what they were many years ago . It is no denying the fact that a lineman in the PDD is the ”ultimate authority ” connecting the consumer with the services of the department. One lineman is looking after a vast area which obviously he normally cannot except on very urgent basis. Not only is the position at the penultimate level of staff continuously in a shambles but even at the top , mere adhoc (ism) is galore and even many posts of Chief Engineers and Superintending Engineers are lying vacant for a long time. Who is to decide about such postings and why no action is being taken is not only worth knowing but the reasons of why no decision is taken needs to be gone deep into. When the top positions are allowed to remain in a state of indecisiveness, how can such departments really perform commensurate to the tax payers’ expectations whose money is regularly invested to run these departments. Resentment in the staff and especially those who otherwise being eligible for promotion to and manning the vacant positions , are denied such opportunities by those authorities vested with powers to get the vacant posts filled. Such posts , definitely , are not going to be filled by the process of direct new recruitment and have, therefore, got only to be done through internal promotions. In other words, a chain of internal promotions get stuck up as from Junior or Assistant to senior engineers and from senior engineers to Superintending Engineers and onwards the entire process is stalled. Frustrated staff nursing job monotony are in fact prone to become net liabilities than productive assets when levels of performance are reckoned. Posts of Chief Engineer Rawi Tawi , for instance, lying vacant for more than 18 months for no specific reasons , Chief Engineer , Urban Environmental Engineering Department lying vacant for over 12 months and temporary and ad-hoc measures employed to run the affected departments mean that neither was there any concern for their up to mark performance and quick , prompt and quality delivery nor any realisation of the staff unrest on account of messy handling of internal promotion , career progression and not doing away with patch work approach, adjustments and temporary measures. Sheer casual, temporary , ad-hoc and incharge approach can be seen in Executive Engineer of a division asked to ”look after” additional two divisions resulting in even not in a position to properly handle his own one division. Much talked about Manpower Audit is nowhere. Departmental Promotion Committees are conspicuous by their not holding regular meetings. Proper planning of staff requirement and replenishing the shortage on account of superannuation and other reasons not being done – are all negating the claims of the Government of providing better and maximum governance with less Government . How can, therefore, we grow faster unless we have quality and maximum governance, to start with, by making our critically important and sensitive departments run smoothly by employing no temporary, adhoc, accommodative, day to day basis and flawed measures.