Mohinder Verma
JAMMU, Oct 10: Notwithstanding the fact that huge chunk of its land in different parts of Jammu and Samba districts is either under encroachment or facing threat of trespassing from the land mafia, the Jammu Development Authority (JDA) is lacking manpower required to keep check on such illegal activities and properly maintain the revenue record.
The Board of Directors (BoDs) is responsible for the prevailing situation as it has failed to take any concrete decision for filling up the posts, which are lying vacant due to retirement of officers and officials.
Official sources told EXCELSIOR that during the past 10 years many posts in different wings of the Jammu Development Authority fell vacant following retirement of the officers and officials but the Authority has not made any new recruitment.
There was no focus on filling up the vacant posts despite the fact that sectional heads of the JDA time and again projected requirements of additional qualified hands for smooth functioning of day to day work, sources said.
The non-serious approach towards filling vacant posts continued by those at the helm of affairs in the Housing and Urban Development Department, which has administrative control over JDA, despite the fact that there was urgent need to fill up these posts by direct recruitment as per the provisions of the draft recruitment rules of JDA in view of the ongoing projects and future development plan, sources further said.
The issue of strengthening human resource in JDA figured in the 71st Board of Directors meeting held several years back and formation of Selection Committee for conducting recruitments in JDA was approved. “However, no progress has been made and numerous posts are still lying vacant”, sources informed.
They disclosed that acute shortage of field staff in engineering as well as revenue wings especially at ground level also figured in 75th meeting of Board of Directors of Jammu Development Authority held last month. It was revealed during the meeting that in compliance to the directions issued by the General Administration Department for discontinuation of staff engaged on contractual basis, the JDA also dispensed with the services of contractual appointees which has impacted the working of both the wings adversely.
However, the Board of Directors only issued directions for engagement of Junior Engineers through outsourcing agency and engagement of retired Patwaris and Girdawars as per the laid down norms, sources said, adding “in this way the Board of Directors adopted casual approach towards the manpower requirement of the JDA”.
According to the official data available with EXCELSIOR, JDA is facing shortage of 13 Junior Engineers (Civil), two Junior Engineers (Electrical), one Junior Engineer (Mechanical) and three Draftsmen. As far as revenue wing is concerned, two posts of Girdawars and eight posts of Patwaries have been lying vacant despite the fact that adequate number of such officials are required for carrying out demarcation of land of JDA in coordination with the revenue wings of Deputy Commissioner Jammu and Deputy Commissioner Samba to avoid encroachments in future and eviction from the already encroached land.
“More shockingly, the Jammu Development Authority is lacking adequate number of Enforcement Inspectors, whose primarily job is to make hawk’s eye on the encroachment attempts”, sources said while disclosing that seven posts of Enforcement Inspectors have been lying vacant during the past several years.
They further said that the non-serious approach towards equipping JDA with sufficient manpower is notwithstanding the fact that its jurisdiction is going to be extended to 132 villages under the new Master Plan. Sources disclosed that till date no detailed exercise has been carried out to assess the human resource requirement of the JDA as a result of which it is lacking the vital manpower to fight the menace of encroachments.
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