CMDA slyly recruits workers on contract basis

C Shivakumar @ Chennai:

In what could be a recruitment drive by bending the rules, Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority is using the services of Electronic Corporation of Tamil Nadu (ELCOT) to hire staff for Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority on contract basis by paying a part of salary as commission.

The recruitment drive which is being done slyly without any transparency is allegedly to employ those on nominal muster roll (NMR) as planning assistants, engineers and drivers on contract basis through Elcot.

The entire process does not have legal sanctity and official sources confirmed that the recruitment process is for temporary postings only.

“Planners have not been appointed We have taken in people on contract for one to six months. It is not recruitment,” said official sources.

Interestingly, sources claim that Elcot instead of recruiting the persons directly, go by the bio-data sent in by the administration wing of CMDA. These bio-datas belong to relatives or aides of employees which is being questioned by Association of Professional Town Planners.

It is learnt that per year Rs one crore is being paid to Elcot and the manpower agencies. “Advance of six months per employee is paid to Elcot. This also includes Central and State Goods Service Tax as service charges,” said sources.

As per the norms of government, the recruitment to government posts is done on deputation, direct recruitment, by promotion, transfer of service or consolidated recruitment basis. As per the Nominal Muster Roll workers, they have to be paid wages per day and should not exceeding Public Works Department (PWD) schedule of rates published every year on June. But all these rules have been ignored.

However, official sources defend the recruitment. “It is a contract for supply of manpower for short duration and for permanent nature of jobs CMDA has written to Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission,” sources said.

But Association of Professional Town Planners (APTP) president K M Sadanandh has termed the entire process as illegal and demanded a probe by a high level committee.

It is a well established fact that CMDA requires manpower. They have been blaming the shortage of manpower since the last 10 years, including when the Moulivakkam building collapse happened, says Sadanandh.

“They should have gone through employment exchange. Why are they paying a huge sum as commission to contract agency and sub-contract agency

Citing example, CMDA sources claim that for a ordinary post Rs 26,000 slary is fixed. But the contract employee gets only Rs 16,000. Nearly Rs 10,000 is loss to exchequer.

“They could have gone in for recruitment directly rather than going through the backdoor,” said sources.

Interestingly, many of the contract workers are continuing for more than four years. “This violates the reservation policy of the government also,” say sources.

For the last 26 years, CMDA is functioning without service rules. It was in 1992 that CMDA amended the service rules, which governs the recruitment and service of the staff for the city's prime urban planning agency. But failure to notify the rules has led to occasional bending of the rules and also confusion in the service rules.

Now with backdoor recruitment on contract basis by paying hefty sum to Elcot and Information technology firms, CMDA is again found bending the rules and spending a huge sum of exchequer on employment which lacks transparency, says Sadanand.

Factfile:

1.  Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority is using the services of Electronic Corporation of Tamil Nadu (ELCOT) to hire staff for Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority on contract basis.

2.  The staff are hired through contractors mostly IT companies after paying six month advance.

3.  Every year CMDA pays Rs 1 crore every year  for the recruitment process.

4.  As per the norms of government, the recruitment to government posts is done on deputation, direct recruitment, by promotion, transfer of service or consolidated recruitment basis.