1 in 2 Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike posts is vacant; engineering, health depts worst hit

BENGALURU: The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) is running its operations with only about 50% of its approved manpower. Of its 12,960 posts, only 6,535 are currently occupied, meaning that as many as 6,425 posts are lying vacant across departments.
According to BBMP data, only the forest department is currently operating at full strength with all its 11 sanctioned posts occupied.

Key departments such as engineering, health and education are the worst affected due to shortage of staff.
The Karnataka Administrative Reforms Commission recently recommended to the government to augment BBMP staff strength in order to improve governance, citizen services and infrastructure quality.
BBMP needs to add at least 700 personnel, including engineers, health officers, legal experts and revenue officials, the commission's report said, while suggesting other reforms to decentralise the administration. There is a shortage of 65 assistant executive engineers (civil) and 169 assistant engineers (civil) in the engineering department. The health department has a shortage of 599 posts, including 11 health officers, seven gynaecologists, nine paediatricians and 58 senior health inspectors. The education department is also short-staffed with only 193 of its 478 sanctioned posts occupied.
Tushar Giri Nath, BBMP chief commissioner, however, told TOI that BBMP has not allowed its operations to be affected despite this acute staff shortage. According to BBMP numbers, there are only 13 vacancies among the 1,578 sanctioned posts in the general administration department.
"About 90% of our education department employees are working on a contract basis. We are planning to recruit teachers with the help of the state education department's recruitment division," Nath said.