C Shivakumar @ CHENNAI:
Civil engineers and town planners are being hired for Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority by Electronic Corporation of Tamil Nadu (ELCOT) in the guise of employing network engineers, IT coordinators and technology coordinators.
While Electronic Corporation of Tamil Nadu (ELCOT) has the powers to employ technical persons like Electrical engineers, Bachelor of Computer applications, B Sc computer science or diploma in ECE or EEE in state departments, it is recruiting civil engineers under the guise of recruiting for these technical positions.
What is more surprising is most of those hired are relatives of Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority employees. They are employed on nominal muster roll (NMR) and the whole process lacks transparency. The entire process does not have legal sanctity and official sources confirmed that the recruitment process is for temporary postings only. However, the employees have been continuing for the last six years when this kind of arrangement was introduced, say sources.
When Express contacted officials linked to ELCOT, the officials said that ELCOT has the power to recruit technical staff. However, when it was pointed out that the posts are being filled with civil engineers, official sources vowed to investigate the matter.
While sources claimed that Elcot, whose duty is to purchase software, computer printer and maintenance of software, can recruit people for IT cell. But then when it recruits civil engineers for other departments then there is something fishy.
Instead of recruiting the persons directly, Elcot officials go by the bio-data sent in by the administration wing of CMDA. These bio-datas belong to relatives or aides of employees. 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.
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 exceed the Public Works Department (PWD) schedule of rates published every year in June. But all these rules have been ignored.
What is more worrying is that after the recruitment of 131 posts, which had sparked a controversy after appointment orders were issued a day before the model code of conduct, Elcot is continuing recruitment for non-technical posts under the guise of office assistant and data entry operator. 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.
CMDA sources claim that for an ordinary post Rs 26,000 salary is fixed. But the contract employee gets only Rs 16,000. Nearly Rs 10,000 is lost to the 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.
Now with backdoor recruitment on contract basis by paying hefty sums 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.
Civil engineers and town planners are being hired for Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority by Electronic Corporation of Tamil Nadu (ELCOT) in the guise of employing network engineers, IT coordinators and technology coordinators.
While Electronic Corporation of Tamil Nadu (ELCOT) has the powers to employ technical persons like Electrical engineers, Bachelor of Computer applications, B Sc computer science or diploma in ECE or EEE in state departments, it is recruiting civil engineers under the guise of recruiting for these technical positions.
What is more surprising is most of those hired are relatives of Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority employees. They are employed on nominal muster roll (NMR) and the whole process lacks transparency. The entire process does not have legal sanctity and official sources confirmed that the recruitment process is for temporary postings only. However, the employees have been continuing for the last six years when this kind of arrangement was introduced, say sources.
When Express contacted officials linked to ELCOT, the officials said that ELCOT has the power to recruit technical staff. However, when it was pointed out that the posts are being filled with civil engineers, official sources vowed to investigate the matter.
While sources claimed that Elcot, whose duty is to purchase software, computer printer and maintenance of software, can recruit people for IT cell. But then when it recruits civil engineers for other departments then there is something fishy.
Instead of recruiting the persons directly, Elcot officials go by the bio-data sent in by the administration wing of CMDA. These bio-datas belong to relatives or aides of employees. 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.
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 exceed the Public Works Department (PWD) schedule of rates published every year in June. But all these rules have been ignored.
What is more worrying is that after the recruitment of 131 posts, which had sparked a controversy after appointment orders were issued a day before the model code of conduct, Elcot is continuing recruitment for non-technical posts under the guise of office assistant and data entry operator. 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.
CMDA sources claim that for an ordinary post Rs 26,000 salary is fixed. But the contract employee gets only Rs 16,000. Nearly Rs 10,000 is lost to the 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.
Now with backdoor recruitment on contract basis by paying hefty sums 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.
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