When people have grievances or hardships and when that powers that be are apathetic and negligent to alleviate the hardships and redress the grievances, they either take the legal course or turn to the media. Herald always sympathises and empathises with aggrieved people. And this report narrates the hardships faced by the employees of civil supplies department, Vasco office
This is possibly the worst workplace among government offices in Mormugao taluka and it is not difficult to see why.
Spread over a meagre area of about 4 x 3 square metres in one room at the MMC building, the office of the civil supplies department has to accommodate five tables, three cupboards, two racks and one computer system. Due to lack of space, documents and files are seen piled up in every vacant place available in the room.
With the growing number of ration cardholders in the taluka, the staff working in the department is left without any option, other than to stack documents under tables and in corners in the absence of racks and space.
According to sources, the department maintains the records of about 40,000 ration cards, besides documents of 40 fair price shops in Mormugao taluka.
Cobwebs are hanging all over the room and the foul and damp smell in the room makes it difficult for the employees to work there, besides the added congestion of people visiting the office. An old Portuguese fan which rotates at snail’s pace provides little relief to the employees and the public.
Besides the poor infrastructure, the heavy workload has also added to the grievances among the five employees in the office. The staff has to cater daily to a large number of people, which can often go up to 250 individuals per day. The work primarily revolves around issuing of new ration cards, transfer and deletion of names for separate ration cards to procure Government schemes.
While there are other bigger and more spacious rooms available at the MMC building, the people find it difficult to understand why the civil supplies office is accommodated in an ill-equipped room.
“Repeated requests to authorities for shifting the department to a more spacious block in the MMC building have fallen on deaf ears,” a source told Herald.
It is reliably learnt that after one of the six employees was transferred, a replacement is yet to be sent to the office and till date, the office does not have an Upper Division Clerk.
There are other problems in store at the office. Though the department has been upgraded with the installation of an online system, it is given to understand that the system is still inactive at the Vasco office. What is also surprising to note is the poor quality of declaration forms, which are old and are delicate and easily tear off.
When contacted, Mormugao Municipal Chief Officer Y B Tawde admitted that the civil supply department needs a bigger space. “The department has requested us to shift them to a bigger office to function better,” added Tawde.
“Since the sub-registrar’s office from the municipal building is shifted to another location, the place is lying vacant. However, we cannot allot the vacant office as we are in the process of renovating the building,” said Tawde.
“I have assured the Civil Supplies department that after renovation and with the permission of the council, the space earlier occupied by the sub-registrar’s office will be allotted to the Civil Supplies department office,” added Tawde.
