MARGAO: In a setback to various municipalities across the State, particularly Margao, the Urban Development Minister Vishwajit Rane announced that the recruitment of municipal employees will be put on hold as a temporary measure till the issue of implementation of common cadre for urban local bodies in Municipal Administration is sorted out.
“The file is being sent to the Law Minister Nilesh Cabral, for his inputs and then will be forwarded to Chief Minister Pramod Sawant and the cabinet,” said Rane.
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“Common Cadre has been pending for a very long time and needs to be implemented with immediate effect, unless this decision is taken there will be no recruitment in any municipalities, this is needed in order to bring in more efficiency into the system,”
he added. Rane further emphasised upon the need for these reforms pointing out issues such as bureaucratic monopoly due to employees being stationed in one place for extended periods, delays in receiving pension
payments, etc.
“The objective is to align urban operations with the principles of the 74th Amendment,” the Minister added. “We will work on providing deliverables to the people, and concentrate on areas of revenue generation and several other issues,” he added further.
Interestingly, on Friday, Margao Municipal Council (MMC) Chairperson Damodar Shirodkar on Friday expressed his disapproval over the cancellation of the recruitment process initiated by the civic body. He said he had clearly expressed his objection in the file notings for the cancellation of the recruitment process but that given that the public notice was issued despite his objection, he would consult Margao MLA Digambar Kamat to see what can be done in this situation. Kamat also tried to persuade Rane to reverse his decision.
MMC had initiated the process of recruitment for 43 posts but soon after that, the Director of Urban Development Gurudas Pilarnekar had written to the MMC Chief Officer Gaurish Shankhwalkar, directing him to cancel the recruitment process citing instructions from Rane that recruitment to all civic bodies will be done by the government. Shankhwalkar then issued a public notice for cancellation of the recruitment process.
