With over 3,500 vacancies, can NMC make Nagpur a Smart City?

Times of India: Nagpur: Friday, June 16, 2017.

The BJP-ruled Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) is not only facing a funds crunch but also huge shortage of manpower, which is adversely affecting its working. Information obtained under RTI Act has disclosed that the civic body has 3,547 vacancies out of 11,747 sanctioned posts (vacancy of 30%).

In a reply to queries raised by senior RTI activist Abhay Kolarkar, the NMC informed that it was facing maximum vacancies for Class-III posts. Of the 3,645 sanctioned Class-III posts across departments, over 2,000 are vacant. The reply submitted by NMC medical officer Dr Vijay Joshi stated that even Class-IV posts were also not filled since long, leading to over 1,200 vacancies from the sanctioned strength of 2,785.

Even Class-I and II posts have vacancies. Of the 194 sanctioned Class-I posts, 65 are vacant. For Class-II, 21 are vacant out of 32 posts. In case of doctors, of the 85 sanctions posts, 18 are vacant.

"Posts are sanctioned taking into account the overall population and need of the city. If those aren't filled for a long time, the delivery of services to citizens is affected. We all are well aware of how efficiently the NMC works and how it's turned out to be a complete failure on all fronts. Filling up the posts would help it in slightly improving its efficiency and image among the citizens," Kolarkar told TOI.

He added that the civic administration must take steps to fill up the large number of vacancies as the city's population was rapidly increasing. "On the one hand, Union minister Nitin Gadkari and chief minister Devendra Fadnavis are taking efforts to make Nagpur a Smart City, but the government is lax in filling up such large number of posts. Just over 11,000 posts, with 3,547 vacant, for a population of 25 lakh isn't going to help," he said.

Joshi, who had replied to the RTI queries in the capacity of information officer, admitted that vacancies were a cause of concern, but stated that he didn't know about other departments and just filed information provided to him.