Srinagar’s municipal administration is carrying two seemingly contradictory burdens at once: hundreds of vacant posts and dozens of employees facing enquiries or cases before different agencies.
Information obtained under the Right to Information Act shows that 51 employees of the Srinagar Municipal Corporation are currently facing enquiries or cases before different agencies.
The disclosure comes as the corporation remains significantly understaffed.
Of the 3,110 posts sanctioned for the civic body, only 2,240 employees are currently in position, leaving 870 posts vacant – nearly 28 percent of the sanctioned workforce.
Yet only 55 vacant posts have been referred to recruitment agencies, according to the RTI response.
The figures offer a glimpse into the functioning of a civic institution responsible for essential services across Srinagar while operating with a substantial gap between its approved strength and regular workforce.
At the same time, the revelation of employees facing enquiries or cases puts oversight and accountability under scrutiny.
The RTI disclosure, however, comes with an important qualification.
The 51 employees have not been declared guilty of wrongdoing.
The corporation’s response does not identify the employees, the agencies investigating them, the allegations involved, or the current status or outcome of the proceedings.
It simply records that, according to information available with the concerned section, 51 employees are “facing enquiry/cases in different agencies.”
The figure emerged in response to an RTI application seeking information about SMC employees facing corruption cases. The Public Information Officer provided the number but no case-wise details.
That makes the disclosure significant, but limited.
It establishes that dozens of employees are involved in ongoing enquiries or cases, but does not establish what those cases concern, whether they all relate to corruption, or what their eventual outcomes may be.
An enquiry is not a conviction. A pending case is not a finding of guilt.
That distinction is particularly important when the identities and allegations concerning individual employees have not been disclosed.
The corporation’s sanctioned strength stands at 3110 employees. With 2240 in position, the vacancy stands at 870.
Yet the recruitment pipeline covers only a fraction of that number.
According to the RTI response, 39 Junior Assistant posts, two Works Supervisor Grade-IV posts and 14 Tax Assistant posts had been referred to recruitment agencies.
Together, these account for just 55 posts.
That leaves 815 vacant sanctioned posts outside the group referred for recruitment, based on the corporation’s own figures.
The response does not explain whether these remaining vacancies are intended to be filled, reorganised, abolished or kept pending for administrative reasons.
But the numbers underline the difference between a sanctioned post on an organisational chart and an employee actually available to perform the work.
The picture becomes more complicated when workers outside the regular establishment are considered.
While SMC reported 2240 regular employees in position, it separately reported 2366 consolidated and daily-wage workers. It also reported 1544 consolidated sanitation workers.
The regular strength of safaiwallas stood at 1346.
The corporation reported no employees under the contractual category.
These figures show that the sanctioned establishment does not tell the whole story of the workforce involved in municipal operations.
A large pool of consolidated and daily-wage workers operates alongside the regular workforce, with different employment arrangements, remuneration structures and levels of job security.
That complicates the simple question of whether SMC is understaffed.
On paper, the corporation has 870 vacancies. In practice, thousands of workers outside the regular establishment are also involved in its operations.
The distinction is especially visible in sanitation.
SMC reported 1544 consolidated sanitation workers in addition to 1346 regular safaiwallas.
For a city where waste collection, street cleaning and sanitation are among the most visible measures of municipal performance, the workforce structure has practical significance.
A civic body may have thousands of workers while still carrying vacancies in its permanent establishment. Its ability to deliver services depends not only on the number of workers, but also on their deployment, supervision and accountability.
The 51 employees facing enquiries or cases add another layer to the picture.
The RTI response does not say that they have been found guilty of corruption. Nor does it establish that all 51 proceedings involve corruption.
It only records that they are facing “enquiry/cases in different agencies.”
Without case-wise information, it is impossible to assess the nature, seriousness or status of the individual proceedings.
But the disclosure still puts institutional accountability in focus.
A municipal corporation exercises considerable administrative authority involving public money, procurement, construction, taxation, sanitation and civic regulation.
The integrity of these processes depends on oversight mechanisms capable of identifying wrongdoing and acting where necessary.
It also depends on ensuring that allegations are investigated fairly and that employees are not treated as guilty before proceedings are concluded.
The RTI response provides the first part of that picture: 51 employees are facing proceedings.
It does not provide the other: what happened to those cases.
Taken together, the figures reveal several institutional gaps.
There is the 870-post vacancy. There is the recruitment gap, with only 55 posts referred to agencies. There is the structural dependence on consolidated and daily-wage workers. And there is limited publicly available information about the 51 employees facing enquiries or cases.
None of these figures, individually, establishes administrative failure.
But they raise questions about how a major civic institution manages its workforce and accountability systems.
Why are 815 vacant sanctioned posts yet to be referred for recruitment? What is the timeline for filling them?
How much of SMC’s operational work is being carried out by consolidated and daily-wage workers?
What are the outcomes of the 51 enquiries and cases? Which agencies are handling them? And how long have the proceedings been pending?
The answers would help establish whether the figures represent a temporary administrative backlog or point to deeper structural issues.
For now, the RTI data offer a snapshot rather than a diagnosis.
The snapshot is striking.
Srinagar’s civic body has a sanctioned workforce of 3110 but only 2240 regular employees in position. It has 870 vacancies but has referred just 55 posts for recruitment. Alongside the regular establishment, it relies on thousands of consolidated and daily-wage workers.
And within that system are 51 employees who, according to the corporation’s own records, are facing enquiries or cases before different agencies.
The number does not tell the public who is guilty. It does not even establish what the allegations are.
But it does reveal the complexity of the machinery behind Srinagar’s civic administration.
The vacancies show where sanctioned positions remain unfilled. The large non-regular workforce shows how the corporation supplements its regular establishment.
And the pending enquiries underline another requirement of a functioning civic institution: systems capable of ensuring that public authority is exercised responsibly, while due process is maintained.
For Srinagar, the numbers in the RTI response are therefore not simply about employees.
They are about the machinery behind the city – and how much of that machinery is working, waiting, or under scrutiny.
About the Author
Bisma Rafiq is interested in human resources and its role in improving journalism and media organisations. She is also a passionate storyteller.
