Contract issue to hit BBMP’s admin work

The administrative work of the BBMP will be severely affected as the contract period of outsourced employees expired last month.

Even after a month, the BBMP has failed to extend the contract, while Karnataka State Electronics Development Corporation (KSEDC; also known as Keonics), which has provided employees to the BBMP, has threatened to discontinue its manpower service.

KSEDC has outsourced 753 employees while VNS Consultants has outsourced 36 men for the BBMP. Of these, 789 employees, 17 are typists, 20 are software and hardware workers and 752 are data entry operators.

Though the contract with the KSEDC expired on February 29, the BBMP has continued to avail the service from contract workers without renewing the period, as it is battered by a severe shortage of permanent employees.

According to sources, there is a shortage of 6,000 employees at the BBMP. This has made it dependent on contract workers for day-to-day office work as most of the BBMP officials do not have knowledge of computers.

As the BBMP delayed extending the contract, on March 7, KSEDC manager (HR) Narendra Prakash V shot a letter to the BBMP additional commissioner (administration), stating that the BBMP should provide revised minimum wages according to the labour department notification to avail the service of contract workers.

Narendra Prakash said: “BBMP has not renewed the agreement. So we are not responsible for paying salary to contract workers. The BBMP has to pay their salary based on attendance.”