Amid mounting criticism over bureaucratic red tape and delay in implementation of various important projects, the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) is now grappling with the tough task of cutting down its workforce by 33 per cent, along with recruitment of young experts, as part of its overhaul.
The agency headquarters — Vikas Sadan — are already getting a facelift and all of its services are getting computerised. The revamp is followed by a survey report submitted by the National Productivity Council (NPC), which recommended rationalisation of the “vertical command structure” in the DDA and said certain non-critical and non-technical operations should be outsourced.
At present, the average age of an employee in the housing agency is 50 years and the NPC study observed that its number of employees should be reduced by “one-third.” The DDA has 16,000 employees and the findings of the study indicate that its Horticulture Department ought to cut employees by 70 per cent, which is the highest across all departments. The next is the Engineering Department, which could witness as much as 40 per cent less workforce.
The report also recommends further strengthening of DDA’s expertise on critical and technical areas such as planning and architecture. “Restructuring of the DDA is on in full swing and will hopefully be over by the end of this year. All our work and records would be computerised as a result of which we would need less manpower.
There will be a one-third cut in the total number of employees of the DDA and the whole building will be turned into a high-tech workstation,” said Balvinder Kumar, Vice Chairperson, DDA, adding that the authority has floated a request for proposal (RFP) to outsource the task of digitisation of all its work to a specialised firm. Out of over 10 lakh files, so far, over a lakh files have been computerised, officials said.
Meanwhile, the ground and third floor of Block A of the DDA headquarters are also being completely redeveloped. “Workstations with connected terminals are being made. There will be file compressors and cupboards. It will be a state-of-the-art office,” said Kumar.
However, the fearing getting pink slip has spread the air of ambiguity across the officials. A senior official explained, “The DDA is not going to ask anybody to leave. It will simply not hire anybody in place of officials who retire.” Notably, DDA - which is under the Centre’s jurisdiction - had around 50,000 employees years ago but, “it has managed to come down to 16,000 without any sacking,” added the official.