UD Dept to make own appointments under 8 cadres

The State Government is going in for a major revamp in the administration of the urban local bodies (UlBs) very soon. The Urban Development Department has initiated a process to this effect following an approval of the proposals by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik.

The proposals would be given a final shape at a joint meeting of the Urban Development and Finance departments in the first week of August. As per the proposal, the Urban Development dept, for the first time, will create a separate cadre of its own in which appointments would be made for eight different cadres of employees. Creation of the new cadre would mean an additional Rs 128 crore burden on the State exchequer. Apart from this, a decision has been taken to abolish 183 posts created some years ago.

On the other hand, the State Government has also planned to increase the amount of compensation towards the losses being incurred by several UlBs and Municipal Corporations in the collection of Octroi taxes, the sources added. To regulate the UlB administration, the Government would create a special directorate under which regional offices would be set up. The directorate will be headed by the civic body administrator.

After the creation of eight new cadres—Odisha Civic Administration Service, Odisha Civic Revenue and Finance Service, Odisha Civic Technical Service, Odisha Civic Public Health Service, Odisha Civic Community Development Service, Odisha Civic Governance Service, Odisha Civic Planning Service and Odisha Civic Ministerial Service with round 4,773 new posts would be created.It has also been decided to create three classes of employees like A, B and C under each new cadre. Each city would be divided into eight categories according to the size of population. As per 2011 census, cities having population of 10 lakh or above would come under category-1, 6-10 lakh under category-2, 3-6 lakh under category-3, 1-3 lakh under category-4, 50,000-1 lakh under category-5, 25,000-50,000 under category-6, 10,000-25,000 under category-7 and 5000-10,000 under category-8.