Explainer: The final step in unification of the MCD
The unified Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) has published its schedule of posts outlining the number of posts, grades and designations of civic bureaucracy in Delhi
New Delhi: Marking the final step in the process to merge the erstwhile three municipal corporations of Delhi, the unified Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) has published its schedule of posts outlining the number of posts, grades and designations of civic bureaucracy in Delhi. The official schedule acts as the blueprint for the municipal body, which employs around 1.5 lakh workers. The corporation has decided to shelve around 3,141 posts under the unified administration – reducing MCD employees from 1,50,557 to 1,47,417 civic staff. The MCD came into existence in its current form on May 22, 2022, through an act of parliament.
The unified MCD published its schedule of establishment on September 21, 2022, finalising the official blueprint for municipal bureaucracy in the capital, the official designations, and the grades of municipal officers. (Arijit Sen/HT Photo)
The unified MCD published its schedule of establishment on September 21, 2022, finalising the official blueprint for municipal bureaucracy in the capital, the official designations, and the grades of municipal officers. As per the finalised schedule, the civic body will cut down its worker strength in departments like the engineering wing, community services, and horticulture while the officially sanctioned posts will increase in education, sanitation and revenue generation departments like property tax, advertisement, and remunerative projects cell.
Impact of the changes
To be sure, these changes will not translate into any immediate sackings or pink slips being issued on a mass scale. But the civic body will not hire employees for these posts in the future, a senior official explained while adding that many of these posts were also lying vacant due to retirements. "The posts in most cases have been decreased as per the assessment of requirement of personnel by the departments. In most cases, we do not need three sets of employees to perform these functions, while the numbers have been raised to strengthen the revenue collection," a senior official associated with the review process said.
Around 2,300 posts will be reduced in the engineering wing while 1,356 posts will be reduced in the community services department. The biggest gains will be with the education department, where the numbers have increased by 1,299 posts, followed by the sanitation department – which will gain 882 employees.
MCD officials said that the staff for these two departments has been increased against the norm of post-reduction as more teachers were required in view of the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) norms and to maintain an ideal student-teacher ratio. "Additions of posts in the sanitation wing is expected to facilitate regularisation of daily wager sanitation workers. About 18,659 sanitation workers are currently classified as seasonal posts," the official said. Besides these 18,659 seasonal posts, the MCD's workforce will comprise 3,192 Group A officials, 34,943 Group B workers and 90,622 Group C workers. The civic body will have one commissioner instead of three, six additional commissioners instead of 10 and 30 departments with one head each.
KS Mehra, the last commissioner (2008-2012) of a unified MCD, said that the restructuring was necessary for such a large urban local body and civic authorities should move towards a leaner top administration. "We need more people on the ground and field to care for citizen-centric issues. A modern urban local body must reinvent itself into a lean and efficient mechanism. The time is right to cut the additional posts at the top and focus on project implementation on the ground," Mehra said. He also recalled that at the time of trifurcation, many officials were promoted to higher posts to meet the requirement of more senior officials in three corporations.
Leaner administration will have to wait?
The promise of a leaner and more efficient civic bureaucracy – and savings in expenses due to triplication of departmental and political wings – was one of the stated objectives of the unification of the MCD. The central government had argued that a single, integrated and well-equipped entity will lead to the optimal utilisation of resources. The civic body will have to wait before slowly phasing out the three sets of heads of departments in key departments.
"In the horticulture department, a new post of director-in-chief horticulture has been set up by surrendering one post of director. The department will have one chief director with two directors, while in many other departments, a provision for additional director has been made," the official explained.
While the municipal corporations have been merged, several of its core departments continue to be headed by multiple people as per the old arrangement of three corporations. The political wing does not currently exist during the transition period, but the executive wing continues to follow the old patterns. For instance, the unified MCD still has three engineers-in-chief, three horticulture directors, three municipal health officers and other key portfolios with continuous expenses on offices, salaries and other benefits.
The MCD has argued that such steps are being taken to avoid large-scale litigations and legal complications, others have argued that the accommodation has defeated the purpose of the unification.
Subhash Arya, the former mayor and veteran municipal councillor from BJP who has worked with the MCD for over 25 years, said the MCD should reduce its expenses and use it for developmental work. "Additional officers should be transferred. We don't need three sets of departmental heads and people working on deputation in the corporation," he remarked.
Employee unions on restructuring
AP Khan, who heads the Confederation of MCD Employees Unions, said that the maximum number of staffers has been removed from the engineering department. But as per the yardstick and CPWD manual, this department was already short on staff. "In every department, a yardstick should be made and followed for such a process. It should not be arbitrary," he stated.
Khan added that many staffers across departments were promoted at the time to trifurcation to fill the need for additional posts and they should not be demoted now. "Most of these workers will retire in a few years. The MCD should try to adjust them instead of adopting demotion as standard practice," he added.
Anil Gupta, former chief law officer of the north corporation, said that the civic body cannot create or abolish these posts on its own and the matter will have to be sent to the Lieutenant Governor for final sanction.
Domestic breeding checkers (DBC), the field workers deployed to counter mosquito breeding in the city, have been left out of the schedule. Ashok Chaudhary, general secretary of the DBC union Anti-Malaria Karamachari Sangh, said that all three houses of erstwhile corporations had passed resolutions to create posts for 3,500 DBCs but are still not willing to implement it. "We have been working with the corporation for the last 27 years and are still treated unfairly," he added.
The unification process, so far
While the unified MCD came into existence on May 22, 2022, the process of subsuming the erstwhile corporations to set up the largest government department in the city has been long and tedious. The unified MCD came to be headed by the new special officer Ashwini Kumar, who represents the powers of the deliberative wing and MCD commissioner Gyanesh Bharti – who was earlier the South MCD commissioner.
In its first month, June, the new administration focused on appointing departmental heads and developing a new framework for the corporation. The second month witnessed new policies in terms of property taxes, license regimes and several regulations. Under most of these uniform policies, the template of rules and tax rates in South MCD were extended to North and East Delhi. While this has led to a steep rise in taxes in North and East Delhi, most of the city now has uniformity in taxes and fees. A large section of employees from erstwhile North and East MCD have also expressed resentment over the dominance of South MCD officials in the unified set-up.
The unified corporation, in its transition term, has also attempted to increase the powers of the executive wing with clauses of automatic tax hikes and proposals to increase the municipal commissioner's powers in altering these rates. Meanwhile, the delimitation panel set up to restructure the wards in the city has also come up with its draft report on September 13, 2022, paving the way to holding civic polls in Delhi.
What is the Schedule of Establishment? A document with the designations and grades of municipal officers and employees in permanent service with the corporation, their salaries, fee and allowances. It is the blueprint for organisational flow in the civic body.
3,140 posts have been reduced/saved in the unified MCDs schedule; North, South and East MCD had a total of 150,557 posts and the unified corporation will have 147,417 posts
TL;DR:
Key points: As per the DMC (Amendment) Act, 2022, passed by parliament, all employees of the three corporations became MCD employees on May 22, 2022.
Posts have been reduced/increased as per the revised assessment of manpower carried out by each department
Domestic breeding checkers have been demanding that permanent posts should be created for them, but it has not been incorporated into the current schedule
Three commissioners replaced by one, 10 additional commissioners to be replaced by 6 posts, 30 departments to have one head instead of three
It will not impact current employees; there will be no sackings but new employees wont be hired for these posts in the future
Leaner departments: Engineering, personnel, community services and horticulture to see a reduction
Revenue generating departments like property tax, advertisement, remunerative projects cell to see more employees; Sanitation dept will also be larger, with increased chances for regularisation of contractual Safai Karamcharis
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