More than two years after a National Productivity Council (NPC) direction to the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) seeking ‘rationalisation and reduction of staff strength’, the housing body under the Ministry of Urban Development is dragging its feet over the issue.

A parliamentary committee which examined the matter recently has come down heavily both on the DDA and the Urban Development Ministry for doing little to reduce excess staff in DDA to curb ‘revenue losses’ to the urban housing authority.

The committee has taken strong exception to the delay in implementing the NPC recommendations by the DDA, which cited ‘gaps’ in the council’s report when pressed for a response.

The NPC in its study report submitted on 29 October 2014, has revealed that DDA has 40 per cent excess
staff.

It sought rationalisation and reduction of excess staff strength "by carrying out comprehensive computerisation and
outsourcing certain functional activities".

One year after the NPC submitted its report, DDA on 21 October 2015 came out with its response. The authority cited "gaps" in the NPC recommendations. It said the NPC did not take into account the average age of DDA employees which was 56 years and the fact that a large number of them would be retiring in the next four years. It also
contested that the ongoing computerisation was not taken into account by the NPC. The NPC submitted a revised proposal but it took DDA over seven months to "revisit" it.

Expressing its ‘dismay’ over the delay in implementing the NPC recommendations, the parliamentary panel said the government had given an assurance on reducing staff in DDA in 2014 inside Parliament but it is yet to be fulfilled.

It pointed to ‘total lack of coordination amongst the Ministry (of Urban Development) and DDA’. It asserted: “DDA ought to have provided the complete picture and full information/data to the NPC so that the latter could give conclusive
and actionable recommendations in the first instance itself.

“Needless to mention, excess staff leads to loss of revenue and the ministry and DDA need to assess the revenue loss as a result of excess staff in DDA and take appropriate steps to deal with the situation at the earliest,” the parliamentary panel said.