MAPUSA
Piqued over non-availability of labour force in the Mapusa civic body, city-fathers have questioned the functioning of the administration and lack of accountability in the council.
Work allotment has come under scanner, with councilors pointing out that council has no control on the labourers.
“It appears we have no control over labourers attached to the civic body. Despite requests we do not get labour to carry out work in wards but on several occasions we see them loitering around the municipality building or sitting idle,” said Swapnil Shirodkar, raising the issue at the recent council meeting.
Lamenting on the paucity of workforce, councilor, Marting Carrasco said he had to literally beg for labourers to undertake works in his ward.
“At times, I have to wait for more than a month to get a couple of labourers to undertake cleaning work in my ward,” Martins said.
Raising the issue of timings of the labourers, some councilors said the workers failed to stick to proper timings and were erratic with their work schedule.
“The timing of the labour force is a serious issue. The entire labour staff of the civic body should be given strict and uniform work schedule,” said Madhumita Narvekar.
Taking umbrage to the council practice of deploying some of the labour force for office work, councilor, Swapnil Shirodkar said this practice should be stopped immediately and all such labour staff should be sent on the field.
“Some of those who are supposed to work in the field are drivers, peons and even clerks. We need proper assessment of such staff and find out who is posted where,” Shirodkar said. Senior councilor and former chairperson, Sandip Falari informed that some of the labourers where indeed working as drivers in the council.
“The Chief Officer and the Municipal Engineer should allot work to the labour staff in such a way that work of the council should not be affected. If we pull out all the drivers and send them on field then there will be no one to drive the trucks. Some rationalization will have to be done,” Falari said. Senior councilor, Ryan Braganza suggested drawing up an estimate of the number of labour available with the council.
“If we can outsource some of the works a lot of such problem can be resolved,” he said.
Chairperson, Rohan Kavlekar assured to talk to the chief officer and the municipal engineer to find a way out of the labour problem.
