MARGAO
Smiles lit the faces of the Margao Municipal Council (MMC) employees as they received their orders of promotion after waiting for the day for years now, but the long delay in getting the promotional avenues has only thrown up questions over administrative lapses in the A-Class civic body.
Otherwise, consider this. A worker who had defacto working as a Lower Divisional Clerk (LDC) in the civic body for two decades now has finally got his promotion to the post of LDC after 23 long years.
An LDC is believed to have been promoted to UDC after a gap of 17 years. Another worker claimed he has been waiting for his day for two decades, only indicating that the civic body somewhere down the line failed to give promotional avenues to its employees over the years.
“We are happy that our dream to get the promotion has been finally realised after two decades. We do not think that a worker or LDC had to wait for such a long time for a promotion,” remarked a worker.
He added: “Like me, there are other workers who not only missed the promotional avenue but did not get the timely salary hike in lieu of the delay in promotions for reasons best known to the MMC administration. There will be several workers who did not get the salary hike for the delay in getting the promotions.”
Leader of Goa Municipal Employees Association, Anil Shirodkar finally expressed happiness that the MMC has promoted around 34 employees after a long, long time.
“Injustice was done to these employees by the municipality for not giving them promotions when they were due. Finally, the civic body has promoted these employees and workers via the Departmental Promotion Committee (DPC) recommendation,” he said.
Margao Municipal Chairperson Damu Shirodkar pointed out that he has only ensured that justice is meted out to the 34 employees by giving them promotion orders and new postings.
“Their promotions were long overdue. Some of them had worked for 23 years in the civic body, just waiting for the day to get the promotion. I am happy that justice could be done to these employees during my tenure as Chairperson,” Shirodkar said.
He added: “Since I was aware that promotions for these employees were long overdue, I took upon myself the responsibility to approach the previous Chief Officers to get the confidential reports of these employees. I am thankful to all the former Chief Officers for extending their cooperation and ensuring these employees got justice.”
