From Our Special Correspondent
Daijiworld Media Network - Bangalore

Bangalore, Sep 13: Karnataka State Government Employees Association chairman L Byrappa has demanded immediate steps to fill up the over 1.2 lac vacant posts in various departments if the State Government was serious about checking corruption.

Filling up the vacancies will eliminate delays in clearing the files, which was one of the main reasons for corruption in the administration, and to expedite development activities. The people were not ready to wait for a few days to get a reply or solution to their problems and always sought to resort to shortcut methods to get their work done quickly, he said.

He said that the Government was not recruiting many posts, which had fallen vacant due to retirement or death of the employees and each employee was discharging the duties of three persons. Naturally, there would be delay in clearing the files.

But this had not come in the way of counselling its members from being people-friendly, he said and added that the Association had invited Lokayukta Shivaraj Patil to explain the situation.

Byrappa advised the people, who felt that their problems were not solved or their applications were not attended by the lower level official to complain to the immediate seniors and if necessary to the minister, concerned using due process of law and procedure.

He said a trend was being set in by some contractor-cum-politicians, some of whom were even members of the zilla, taluk or village panchayats to take the law into their own hands and physically attacking officers.

He said in many panchayat and urban local bodies, the wives of the contractors were members, belonging to all the political parties and they demand payment of bills from village accountants/secretaries, panchayat development officers or municipal officers, even though they had not completed 20 per cent of the government works.

When the officers refuse to issue cheques for unfinished works, they were attacked. Such incidents had been reported from Bidar, Koratagere and Tiptur.

Urging the Government to take stern measures and action against such lumpen elements, who take law into their own hands instead of taking legal recourse and due procedure, he said warning that the Association would observe a day`s dharna in October first week at all taluk and district headquarters demanding justice.

He urged the government not to allow such contractors to participate in the tender process, as they were allegedly misusing their power in the panchayat/urban local bodies.

The Association President urged the Government to announce its transfer policy and restrict the transfer of officials to April and May as any attempt to resort to it beyond that period also obstructs government work.

Byrappa reiterated the Association demand to release interim relief, due to the 5.53 lac employees from July 1, 2010 when revision of pay scales was due and the Chief Ministe D V Sadananda Gowda had assured it on Monday that the Government would take a decision before month end.

He said that while the union government revised pay scales as early as 2006, the other States such as Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh have implemented it.

Association General Secretary Range Gowda and Trasurer Chowdaiah said that there was huge difference between the pay scales of the Karnataka government employees with that of the centre (64.30 per cent and 143.13 per cent at the lowest and highest cadre such as group D and KAS senior scale), Tamil Nadu (44.60 and 61.21), Maharashtra (63.93 and 143.13), Andhra Pradesh (36.82 and 99.38) and Kerala (40.42 and 76.05), respectively.