The decision, meant to stop the entry of impersonators and improve attendance, was taken during a recent MCG House meeting.
Things are going to get tough for Municipal Corporation of Gurugram (MCG) staff from April 1. Why? The civic body is all set to launch a biometric attendance system for its officials from the above-mentioned date.
The decision was taken during the MCG House meeting on Wednesday.
“With this move, the MCG staff will be marking their attendance on the biometric system. It will ensure transparency and that functioning of the MCG is not carried out by impersonators,” opined MCG commissioner Yashpal Yadav.
The MCG had on several occasions witnessed staff members, as well as impersonators, breaking the norms and carrying out illegal operations.
In fact, things came to such a head that Haryana urban local bodies minister Kavita Jain had sought a report from the former MCG commissioner V Umashankar over discrepancies in the property tax collection.
Shockingly, 200 commercial properties were taxed as “residential properties”, as residential properties’ invite less tax. This corruption led to losses to the tune of crores for the civic body.
It was later found that these properties were approved as “residential properties” by forging the signatures of MCG commissioner, joint commissioners and zonal taxation officers.
Again, in another blatant case of corruption in December last year, a few MCG officials, along with a few “outsiders”, had floated a website, wherein taxpayers were offered a rebate on their tax dues. No such website was ever authorised by the MCG.
In order to reverse the trend of late attendance, Yadav, after assuming office, directed the MCG staff to be present in their offices by 9 am, and allot an hour every day — between 11am and noon— for hearing grievances of the public.
RS Rathee, independent councillor of ward 34, in a House meeting in January had raised the issue of the MCG “outsourcing 1,700 posts”, many of which could be a “proxy” and part of a bigger scam.
Incidentally, on January 5, HUDA chief administrator J Ganeshan had ordered authority officials in Gurgaon to restrict entry of visitors by installing a biometric attendance system at its Sector 14 office.
YS Gupta, additional commissioner of MCG, disclosed during the House meeting on Wednesday that the civic body has 635 sanctioned posts. MCG staff members occupy 183 positions, the remaining have either been outsourced or filled with employees on deputation from the urban local bodies and other state departments.
