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Koraput: Even six months after its establishment, except the superintending engineer no other staff has been posted at the circle office of minor irrigation (MI) department at Jeypore in Koraput district affecting the pace of development work in four tribal dominated districts.
Without the required manpower, development work has been badly hit in the tribal-dominated Koraput, Malkangiri, Nabarangpur and Rayagada districts, which come under the jurisdiction of the office, sources said.
"Prior to executing an irrigation project, important works like designing, drawing, estimation and tender process are done at the circle office but as no official has been posted, things are getting delayed and we are unable to commence project work in time," an official at the MI office in Rayagada said.
According to sources, scores of minor irrigation projects of the four districts have missed the deadline to commence work with the projects failing to get sanction from the circle office.
Officials said the circle office requires an executive engineer for quality control and design, two assistant executive engineers, four assistant engineers, four junior engineers, a tracer, a draftsman, as many as six clerical staffers, equal number of peons and a steno.
Admitting that work was being affected due to non-availability of staff, superintending engineer (Jeypore) Akshaya Kumar Banerjee said things were being managed by drawing a few officials from division offices of the four districts in the region.
"However, in order to function properly we need competent and permanent staff for the circle office. It has been informed to the higher-ups," he said.
