KARACHI, Sept 13: Work on different plans in the newly established departments of city governments is badly suffering owing to the scarcity of staff.

Three new departments, including literacy, enterprise and investment promotion, and information technology, were established after the inception of city government. The departments were aimed to launch different schemes, but the pace of progress could not be accelerated due to insufficient number of employees.

Despite working in these departments for quite a long time, employees are still getting their salaries from their parent departments from where they had been transferred to these departments. Moreover, the salaries of such employees are not being paid in time due to some inter-departmental reasons.

There are 26 employees in enterprise and investment promotion department, 32 in literacy department and around 250 in information technology department. The figure is far away as compared to the strength of staff in other departments of the city government.

To cope with the burden of work, the enterprise and investment promotion department, and literacy department need 400 employees.

These departments were established with the tall claims by the city government high ups to carry out different projects, but, all these claims proved fruitless, an official of the literacy department remarked.

He said that the non-formal basic education programme aimed to educate the poor had badly suffered by the shortage of staff and proper transportation.

He held the city government high ups responsible for this whole mess and termed it an example of mismanagement resulting in hampering of different operations.

There are a number of Deputy District Officers, Assistant District Officers and other vacancies, which are lying vacant. As a result, the District Officers have to do all the work that causes undue delay and putting extra burden on a single person.

Officials of enterprise and investment promotion department claimed that they had approached high ups of the city government for the solution of this issue. It was suggested to the city government high ups that surplus employees in human resource department should be transferred to enterprise and investment promotion department, they said and alleged that the department concerned did not pay any heed to their suggestion.

They said that a number of major projects, including improvement of coastal areas, Bagh-i-Qasim, and slaughter house, were being carried out by the enterprise and investment promotion department. However, they made it clear that these projects could not be completed if the situation remained the same.

An official of information technology department said that the new system had not been streamlined and organizational matters were still dealt separately despite the existence of devolution plan that clearly states streamlining of all organizational matters.

The official concerned in human resource department when contacted and asked about the prevailing situation in the newly established departments, he said that a meeting would be held on Sept 16, during which this matter would also be raised.—PPI