Rourkela: Even as Rourkela has been shortlisted for ‘smart city’, the basic amenities still elude denizens of the city. Due to frequent transfers of the bureaucrats and other senior officials, Rourkela city administration has yet to perform a lot for betterment, a report said.
According to sources, the Steel City has witnessed transfers of district-level officials—13 Additional District Magistrates (ADMs) over past fifteen years, six Municipal Commissioners over past five years and five Chief Executive Officers over past four years.
Of late, Dibyajyoti Parida has been posted here as Rourkela Smart City Limited Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Rourkela Development Authority (RDA) Chairman and Rourkela Municipal Corporation (RMC) Commissioner as his predecessor Dr Yeddula Vijay will be relieved.
For a few months, Yeddula Vijay was Commissioner of RMC, Chairman of RDA and Additional district Collector Sundargarh but was called back to the state capital. Likewise, ADM Aboli Sunil Naravane who has been recently posted here is yet to take over the charge.
It is alleged that even if Rourkela was selected as Smart City in 2014, frequent change of senior officials has retarded the development process. We have seen only transfers and posting of officials over past five years but no trace of development, the denizens raged.
However, there have been many fresh announcements of new projects as new officials are coming to Rourkela and no project proposal could be successfully executed once old officials were transferred.
Long-term programmes like maintenance of sewerage system, roads, parking lots, traffic management, electrification, housing, waste management and holding tax are being badly affected, residents added.
For instance, frequent transfers of ADMs have caused utter delay in giving redressal to steel plant displaced people. A high-level sitting was conducted in this connection under the chairmanship of Yeddula Vijay, who was then in-charge of this. It was expected that the prolonged problem of displaced people would be sorted out soon.
On the other hand, bureaucrats and other senior officials, who are coming here for mostly a very short duration, are getting otherwise squeezed and overburdened after taking charge of several positions. Some capable officials do not get enough time to prove their worth, a resident remarked.
PNN
