Civic bodies short of EOs, working hit

Ambika Sharma

Tribune News Service

Solan, July 15

The state is facing a shortage of executive officers (EOs) in municipal committees (MCs) where most of the EOs were overburdened with additional charge. The regular recruitment of EOs has not taken place for nearly 20 years.

The sorry state of affairs could be gauged from the fact that some EOs were given additional charge of other MCs where they are supposed to sit for 2 or 3 days in a week. This has adversely affected their smooth functioning. Works like sanctioning building maps, clearing bills of development works as well as approving new works are being delayed.

An illustration of this fact was a recent incident at the MC, Solan, where an RTO, who was holding the additional charge of the EO, was locked up by contractors in his office for more than half an hour in protest against their pending bills. The charge of the EO had been held on a temporary basis first by the tehsildar and then by the RTO for three months in Solan. The EO, Parwanoo, was finally directed to sit there for three days in a week.

The situation was no better in the Congress regime where then EO, Solan, was handling three charges. Similar situation is noticeable in other districts as well.

In Baddi, the additional charge of EO has been given to the EO, Nahan, as the post has been lying vacant for several weeks. The EO Nahan will sit at Baddi for merely two days and in the remaining four days, the SDM, Nalagarh, will take charge.

SDM, Nalagarh, Prashant Deshta, said holding the responsibility of the EO, Baddi, as well as Nalagarh was a time-consuming proposition and one could not do justice to such responsibilities while also handling the job of the SDM.

Director, Urban Development, DK Gupta said the draft recruitment and promotion rules had been framed for appointing new EOs and its final notification was awaited. The process to recruit new officials would be initiated as soon as the rules were notified.