Cooperative dept with zero movement

LUCKNOW:Acute inertia seems to have gripped the cooperatives department in UP where theofficials are helplessly witnessing the chaos. And, the absence of a full-timedepartmental head has apparently worsened the situation.Sources saidthat departmental promotions are stuck for the past many years. "The lastpromotion from the post of assistant registrar to deputy registrar was done in1997 and even though all the nine posts of deputy registrar are vacant, thedepartment is not promoting assistant registrars," claimed an official of thedepartment.Moreover, officials said, there is no post of jointregistrar at the headquarters but six joint registrars are working here as wellas looking after various mandals namely: Bareilly and UP Cooperative Bank CadreOffice. Besides, many joint registrars have the charge of two to three mandalslike Jhansi, Chitrakoot Dham and Lucknow under one joint registrar, Agra andAligarh under one, Meerut and Moradabad under one, Gorakhpur and Basti underone.Then, there is no head of the department (registrar) for thepast one-and-a-half years. Principal secretary, cooperatives is looking afterthe work of registrar also, officials said, pointing out that while assistantregistrars are working in full capacity on the 106 sanctioned posts, all nineposts of deputy registrar are vacant. Against 19 posts of joint registrar, only17 are working. Additional registrars, on the other hand, are 11 against thesanctioned posts of six.An official said that the situation is sobad that some officers on the post of assistant registrar and due for promotionsince long are now going to retire soon. "I have been serving the government forthe past 19 years but I have not been promoted even once. I will retire onOctober 30 in the same scale I joined," said assistant registrar, cooperatives,Dev Sharma, when contacted.Principal secretary, cooperatives, AmalKumar Verma though said that the process is being followed. "The matter ispending in the court and as soon as the case is decided, the department will goahead with the needful," Verma said.Officials, however, feel thatthe department is not following the case properly. "While the DPC on the postsof deputy registrars has already been done, two years have passed since thecourt order dated November 30, 2007 but the promotions have not been finalised",officials said, alleging that though the court in its order, on writ petitionnumber 479 (S/B) of 2007, Paras Nath Yadav and others versus state of UP andothers pertaining to objections over the seniority list, had said that thematter may be heard on a day-to-day basis, the department has not been able topursue the case.