MC under scanner in recruitment of 25 clerks

The municipal corporation of Chandigarh has come under scanner after gross violations were found in the appointment of 25 clerks on contract for six months, who had joined their offices on May 1.

The civic body appointed the said clerks through a government agency, National Institute of Electronics and Information Technology (NIELIT), Chandigarh, in the pay scale of Rs 22,300 per month.

Interestingly, the advertisement for the said posts was issued in the media by NIELIT on February 10, 2013, without mentioning mandatory information such as age limit, reserved posts and salary package. The advertisement didn't even mention the agency for which the recruitments were being made.

The agency completed the recruitment process within 8 days and selected 25 candidates, to whom the civic body issued appointment letters in violations of the norms.

After the issue was raked up in the House, MC immediately withdrew the appointment letters and told NIELIT to give them appointment letters instead, which they did and the candidates joined their duties on May 1.

BJP councillor Davesh Moudgil, who raised the issue in the House, said, “It is a clear cut violation of norms. The recruitment process is far from transparent. In the entire process, no officer from MC was involved to check the credentials of the prospective workers.”

Additional commissioner of MC, Lalit Siwach, said, “the recruitment was the responsibility of NIELIT and we have appointed the clerks for a period of six months. In the advertisement age limit was not mentioned, but the same was mentioned on their website. MC is short of 125 clerks and with these appointments, work will streamline to certain extent.”

NIELIT director AKD Dwivedi said they had issued the appointment letters to the candidates and he was not aware of anything else.

NIELIT is an autonomous scientific society of department of electronics and information technology, government of India.