Fund shortage as well as acute shortage of staff due to retirement as well as court halting the process of recruitment has hit the state’s Health & Family Welfare (H&FW) department at a time when it is expected to sustain the fight against Covid-19.
Sources confirmed to Nagaland Post that due to financial constraints, there was shortage of Rapid Antigen Test kits at one point of time and incoming travellers could not be tested, especially at the inter-State borders.
What has also compounded the problem was the blanket ban on appointments as a result of which, the department could not fill up many posts that fell vacant due to retirement. The sources said the shortage of staff included all categories and this made it increasingly difficult for the department to deploy staff to remote areas. It may be recalled that this newspaper had earlier highlighted on the shortage of staff in the department.
According to the sources, other departments have also been hit hard by the blanket ban on new appointments as many posts that became vacant due to retirement could not be filled up.
Most of such vacancies were of fourth grade posts which directly affected functioning of many departments. The state government had suspended an Office Memorandum (OM) issued on July 16 allowing “partial lifting of ban on appointments against existing vacancies” following an order issued by the Kohima Bench of the Gauhati High Court on September 1. This was in response to the high court which had ordered suspension of the OM on empowering 76 departments to conduct recruitment exams. The court order followed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed by Rising People’s Party. In the PIL, RPP had sought that the proposed Nagaland Staff Selection Board (NSSB) be made functional within one month so that “recruitments to all Group-C posts can be conducted in a transparent manner”.
The court listed the matter for urgent hearing after four weeks and ordered that the “OM remains suspended till the returnable date”. It may be recalled that the state government admitted that it had spent around Rs. 245.44 crore (Rs. 180.88 crore during 2020-21 and Rs. 64.56 crore during 2021- 22) for Covid related activities etc.
Further the government also said it had decided to use 25% of LADP funds to fight the pandemic in 2021-22, that included 15% Common Pool Fund and additional 10% from normal funds without touching the iconic projects. The government said these funds would be kept with the respective DPDBs for fighting the pandemic in the respective districts.
The Finance department, which issued rebuttal to the then opposition NPF also denied allegations of misappropriation of funds in the name of pandemic by clarifying that all funds mobilised through pro-rata cuts and expenditure were accounted under various heads. The present situation within the department has also created alarm since there is expectation of a likely third wave hitting the north east that could also affect Nagaland. With educational institutions also to reopen, the spectre of children exposed to danger of the mutating Delta variant was also not lost on the department officials who spoke to Nagaland Post recently.