Chandigarh: Confusion over extension of tenure of Municipal Corporation Commissioner

Chandigarh: Municipal Corporation Commissioner Anindita Mitra’s three-year term ended today but neither has she been given an extension nor has any other IAS officer been given the charge, leading to a peculiar situation. The Punjab government has not sent any panel for the post of commissioner this time, forcing the UT administration to write to the Home Ministry seeking a three-month extension for the incumbent Punjab cadre officer. Since no extension order for her tenure has been issued by the Centre, confusion prevails over the post in the municipal corporation as well as the UT secretariat. “We have told her that since the Punjab government has not given her any posting, she should expect an extension of her tenure as MC chief. We are approaching the Department of Personnel and Training for her extension,” UT administration sources said.

An official said that as per rules, the administration can extend the tenure of an IAS officer for three months even without obtaining an NOC from his parent cadre. Since the Punjab government has neither sent any panel nor given any posting to them, which usually happens within a few days after the tenure of an officer ends, the administration had to write to the Centre for an extension of the MC chief. This situation is being described as a result of the current political scenario. While the AAP government is in power in Punjab, the BJP is in power at the Centre. Both the party units have conflicting views on Mitra’s extension. The UT administration, which is already short of officers for the top posts, may give additional charge of the post to an officer if an extension order is not received for Mitra.
Officers promoted
Several officers got promotions in the last phase of the MC chief’s tenure. PP Singh, Prabhjot Singh, Yogesh Aggarwal and Amit Sharma have been promoted from sub-divisional engineer to the post of executive engineer, while Yashpal Gupta, Sanjeev Chauhan, Lalit Kumar and Angrez have been promoted from junior engineer to sub-divisional engineer. Mitra will be given a farewell by MC employees at Mahila Bhawan tomorrow at 4 pm.

No finance secretary in UT since June

The UT has no finance secretary since June. Also, the post of home secretary was vacant for the past two months before Mandeep Singh Brar, a 2005 batch IAS officer of Haryana cadre, was given the charge last week.