Solan MC battles staff shortage

Solan, February 27

The Solan Municipal Corporation (MC) is reeling under a shortage of staff. The revenue and the work of the MC has increased five times since it was upgraded from a council in 2020 but the lack adequate staff is hitting its efficiency.

The civic body has been demanding more field staff to monitor revenue collection, but successive state governments have done little to fulfil the demand.

The MC had passed a resolution in the general house in August 2022 for the creation of more posts. The population of Solan town having 17 wards is 47,418 , while the number of households has increased from 10,300 to around 12,000.

The manifold increase in the work required more staff to provide effective services as well as efficient revenue collection. The civic body does not have adequate number of meter readers for collecting water dues.

Solan MC Additional Commissioner Priyanka Chandra said through a resolution they had urged the state government to create the posts of tehsildar (recovery), veterinary public health officer, computer programmer, foremen (electric), assistant social development officer, surveyor, five junior office assistants, two sanitary inspectors and four peons.

The state government was, however, yet to accede to the demand and the limited staff was struggling to cope up with the increasing workload.

Mayor Usha Sharma said a fresh demand had been presented before the state government to provide requisite staff so that work can be executed efficiently and revenue loss can be prevented. She said they were hopeful that the government would heed to their demand soon.

The earlier civic body had 206 sanctioned posts out of which 56 were vacant. After its upgrade, the strength was enhanced to 231 though 84 vacancies continued to exist. Key posts like executive engineer, health officer, town planner, planning officer, sanitary inspectors, meter reader, drivers, beldars, etc., were lying vacant. This was adversely affecting development activities of the town.

While pending projects like parking lots, transport nagar, pedestrian path, etc., are incomplete, no new infrastructure project to ease the parking problem has been mooted. The town’s roads are bursting at seams and traffic congestion is adding to the discomfort of residents.

The residents of the merged areas are yet to see their dreams being fulfilled. A population of 8,162 has been added to the Solan civic body from the nearby panchayats. Though they, too, have been promised better facilities, the tardy pace of progress has left much to be desired.

Govt urged to create posts in 2022

Through a resolution in 2022 ,the civic body had urged the government to create the posts of tehsildar (recovery), veterinary public health officer, computer programmer, foremen (electric), assistant social development officer, surveyor, five junior office assistants, two sanitary inspectors and four peons. — Priyanka Chandra, Additional Commissioner, Solan MC