The Ministry of Urban Development has asked the land owning agency of the national Capital — Delhi Development Authority (DDA) — to reduce its staff strength by upto 40 per cent, as it is in excess. The authority has been stalling the process of staff reduction for last two years citing to the Ministry that the “average age of the employees in DDA is 54 years and in next four-five years, there will be lot of retirements”.
The Ministry, under which the DDA comes, also directed the authority recently to “analyse the loss of revenue as a result of excess staff in DDA and take appropriate steps to deal with the situation at the earliest”. Secretary of Urban Development has asked the DDA to implement the process of staff reduction soon.
The DDA has 11,200 employees including contractual staff and the average age of an employee is 54 years. However, DDA employees are not happy with the decision — they fear many will be forced to retire.
On delay in process of restructuring, the Secretary of Urban Development Ministry had noted that it should have not taken such a long time and warned authority against keeping the report pending.
The delay, sources said, happened ostensibly “due to lack of initiative and lackadaisical attitude of DDA”. “An analysis of this sequence of events reveals that there is total lack of coordination amongst the ministry and the authority,” said officials of Ministry of Urban Development.
The DDA also failed to assess the current manpower requirement and streamline processes for efficient functioning in the authority.
The National Productivity Council (NPC) in consultation with the authority had on October 29, 2014 conducted a manpower audit which found the excess staff in DDA. It then suggested a 40 per cent reduction of existing staff by carrying out comprehensive computerisation and outsourcing certain functional activities.
Sources said, NPC had recommended a major cut in the number of sanctioned posts under various departments. According to officials, DDA has been stalling the process of implementation of the report citing several reasons and even stating that (NPC) should carry out study afresh. In July, 2016, the DDA then informed the Ministry that NPC has submitted a draft revised proposal on restructuring the authority.
In November, last year, the council submitted its draft report in which it yet again recommended scrapping posts and identifying works that can be outsourced to professional service providers.
DDA, however, kept quiet on the report fearing protests and chalking ways to restructure the authority so that they do not have to send people for voluntarily retirement. They are also delaying the process in a bid to get more time wherein most of the staff retires.