The headless Ghaziabad Development Authority (GDA) is facing an acute shortage of officers and engineers due to which developmental activities have slowed down drastically.
The post of Vice-Chairman (VC) is lying vacant since its V-C Kanchan Verma left the post to pursue higher studies in london School of Economics (lSE). In her absence, GDA Secretary Ravendra Madhukar Godbole was looking after the charge as acting V-C. However, Godbole too was transferred to Uttar Pradesh Expressway Industrial Development Authority (UPEIDA) as its Additional Chief Executive Officer.
Three sanctioned post of joint secretaries are lying vacant since long. An officer on special duty (OSD) Dayanand Prasad is the only one to run the authority. Prasad’s fate also hangs in the balance he is under transfer but has been asked to stay put till further orders.
There are 10 sanctioned posts of executive engineers ( EE) in the authority but only six engineers are working at present.
And there are 38 sanctioned posts of assistant engineers (AE) against whom only 22 AEs are working here leaving important works to suffer.
There are 136 sanctioned posts of junior engineers are here but 11 posts are still lying vacant.
“ Due to the staff shortage our supervisory work is being hampered and overall efficiency decreases” said Dayanand Prasad the only OSD of the authority.
“At present Ghaziabad district magistrate (DM) Ritu Maheswari is looking after the authority’s work as Vice- Chairperson in addition to her official responsibilities as the DM. Though she is trying hard to manage the authority and civil administration works but GDA being an important authority in the State, needs a full time Vice-Chairperson” said social activist and Councillor Rajendra Tyagi.