Hindustan Times: Chandigar:Tuesday,
February 12, 2013.
Despite
Central Information Commission (CIC) directives, the Chandigarh Industrial and
Tourism Development Corporation (CITCO) has, allegedly, failed to define the
exact job descriptions and duties of a majority of its functionaries.
In 2011, an
employee of CITCO had approached the CIC after the corporation had failed to
provide him his job description, which he had demanded through a Right to
Information application (RTI).
During the
course of hearing of the case, central public information officer (CPIO) ID
Kalra, had accepted that information sought by the appellant was not in existence.
The CIC had
chided the corporation for functioning without job descriptions; the commission
called it against the good practices in administration and governance.
CITCO was
directed to prepare the information and upload it on its website, however, the
corporation has failed to act till date.
ID Kalra
claimed that he had conveyed the CIC decision to the management of CITCO and
the task of framing job descriptions was underway.
There are
over 70 categories of employees, working in different units - industrial and
tourism of CITCO since its inception in 1974. In the absence of proper job
descriptions, a large number of under-qualified officials have been holding supervisory
positions.
According to
officials, job descriptions help an organisation in hiring and taking important
decisions related to disciplinary actions, promotions, compensation and
termination. "In the absence of job descriptions, undergraduates have been
posted at important positions such as manager personnel," alleged an
official.
On the other
hand, CITCO managing director DK Tiwari claimed that they had job descriptions
for categories that were not common with UT administration, while in the case
of common categories they followed the UT administration.
Rejecting his
claims, CITCO Progressive Workers Union president Rajiv Kohli, who had sought
information about job descriptions through an RTI application, said that had
job descriptions been there, the CPIO would not have accepted before the CIC
that the information sought by the appellant was non-existent.
He also
alleged that in the wake of absence of job descriptions, it was difficult to
fix accountability and had made promotions and punishments random. He ascribed
this as the main reason behind the dipping profits of the corporation.
Till December
31, 2012, CITCO registered a turnover of nearly Rs 2.22 crore, which was Rs
2.76 crore in the corresponding period last year: a fall of nearly 20%.
Hotel
Mountview witnessed a fall in revenue by Rs 1.7 crore, while Hotel Shivalikview
and the steel depot registered losses of Rs 2.92 crore and Rs 57 crore,
respectively.
The CITCO
management had relaxed education qualifications for internal promotions in
2009. "In all organisations promotions are dependent on qualifications. In
the last few years, certain officials have been promoted to the next level. Had
there been defined job descriptions, they would have never made it to the next
rung," rued an official, adding that three officials in the past had been
promoted to managers, while they were simply matriculates.