Vacancy of administrative posts in Odisha's Rourkela hits essential service delivery

ROURKELA: Delivery of essential public services in the city has been seriously affected as key administrative positions are yet to be filled up. 

Former Rourkela District Congress Committee (RDCC) president Biren Senapati taking a dig at the prevailing situation accused the state government of stalling the development of the city by not filling up the vacant positions.

He said the ADM of Rourkela has been additionally assigned responsibilities of Rourkela Municipal Corporation (RMC) Commissioner, Rourkela Development Authority (RDA) Secretary and Rourkela Smart City Ltd (RSCL) Chief Executive Officer (CEO). 

Senapati said the post of Project Administrator to Panposh Integrated Tribal Development Agency is lying vacant for the last eight months while after the retirement of Public Works Department (PWD) Executive Engineer (EE)  in April the post is being held by the EE of National Highway Division.

He said the position of the Project Engineer of Odisha Water Supply & Sewerage Board (OWSSB) has been lying vacant for the last two years and an Assistant Engineer of OWSSB has been given its additional charge. 

The Congress leader said Rourkela and its neighbouring localities with high concentration of industrial workforce continue to grapple with vacancies of Assistant Labour Officer, District Labour Officer and Labour Inspector. 

He said the position of Health Officer and other important posts are lying vacant in RMC. Similarly, out of 74 sanctioned posts of doctors at Rourkela Government Hospital at least 40 are vacant. 

Echoing similar views, former Congress MLA Pravat Mohapatra said with five consecutive wins, arrogance has gripped the BJD government and it has cascaded to the administrative hierarchy in district and city levels.

Both Senapati and Mohapatra claimed neglect of the city has given rise to public resentment.

They said if the situation does not improve soon then Congress would take to the streets. 

Earlier, in January 2018, former Union Tribal Affairs Minister Jual Oram citing vacancies of senior and experienced officers and support staff had shot off a strongly worded letter to Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik. 

Claiming that implementation of Smart City projects were severely hit, Oram had written, “I fail to understand this kind of step-motherly attitude of the state government for Rourkela in particular and Sundargarh district in general”. Oram had also cited 700 vacant positions in RMC.