Staff crunch at BMC's medical health dept hampers work

Shortage of clerical staff in civic body's medical health department is hampering work.

Shortage of clerical staff in civic body's medical health department is hampering work.

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Each ward in the city has a separate medical health department, which issues birth, death and marriage certificates, registrations of medical practitioners, nursing homes, apart from running health programmes such as Pulse Polio Immunisation etc. The staff crunch at the medical health department has made it difficult to procure important documents such as death and birth certificates, revealed a Right to Information (RTI) application.

In reply to a RTI query, the medical health department revealed that of the 24 head clerk posts, eight are currently lying vacant, five clerks are currently working for the medical health department and 11 of them have been transferred to other departments. Similarly, out of 154 sanctioned clerical posts, 50 are unoccupied while 38 of them are posted at the medical health department and 90 of them with other departments.

Anil Galgali, RTI activist, said, "Work is being affected due to shortage of clerical staff. Recently, I visited Kurla 'L' ward office and saw a long queue at the citizen facilitation centre. I was told that due to lack of manpower, the certificates are being held back."

"Ideally, the death or birth certificate should be issued within three days, but I had to wait for two months to recieve a death certificate," said Arvind Tiwari, who visited the Ghatkopar 'N' ward office.

However, Dr Santosh Revankar, deputy executive health officer, said, "We are aware about the ongoing crises because of clerical staff shortage and transfers at the ward offices. However, transfer of clerical staff is an administrative decision and is taken by higher authorities. It is their call and not ours."