‘Contract staff pay to be revised yearly & released via agencies’

Mumbai: The state has appointed nine private HR agencies, namely Accent Tech Services, CMS IT Services, CSC E-Governance Services India, Innowave IT Infrastructure, Crystal Integrated Services, S-2 InfoTech International, Sainik Intelligence Security, Singh Intelligence Security Services, and Urmila International Services to fill government and semi-government positions. Even local self-government bodies and various boards and corporations of the government recruit semi-skilled and unskilled staff will be recruited through them. Salaries of these employees will be revised every year and released via agencies that selected them, the GR indicated.Leader of Opposition Ajit Pawar, while speaking in the assembly, said the use of contractual manpower went against the state’s ongoing drive to fill 75,000 government posts.“One of the posts is that of a project director with a salary of Rs 3.8 lakh per month. The salary is higher than that of the chief secretary,” said Pawar. “Filling government posts with contractual workers will also compromise government secrecy,” he said.Responding to these charges, deputy chief minister Devendra Fadnavis said the scheme had been approved during the tenure of the MVA government and was only being implemented by the Shinde government. “The tender was also floated during the MVA regime. We took some time to take the final decision because there was an ED inquiry against one of the companies, which we then excluded,” he said. Fadnavis defended the GR and said in some cases, highly skilled personnel were required for a short duration. “For Metro work, a highly skilled project director is needed. But after five years when Metro work is completed, he is not required, so it’s best to hire on contract,” said Fadnavis. Hesaid skilled consultants would command up to Rs 5 lakh per month in the private sector, so the government would have to offer at least Rs 3 lakh.Meanwhile, Congress MLC Bhai Jagtap alleged the nine companies listed in the GR included one owned by a BJP MLC and there were complaints of irregularities by that company. (With Chaitanya Marpakwar)