Jharsuguda: Jharsuguda Municipality is functioning with just 20 employees against 80 sanctioned posts, leaving 60 positions — including all 21 sweeper posts and four zamadar positions — vacant, according to a staff-position statement as of Aug 31.Jharsuguda Municipality vice-chairperson Benugopal Panigrahi on Monday sought urgent intervention from the state govt to fill the 75% vacant posts, saying the manpower shortage was affecting the delivery of civic services, revenue collection, sanitation, administration and execution of development works.Panigrahi has written a letter to housing and urban development minister Krushna Chandra Mahapatra, additional chief secretary Usha Padhee, director of municipal administration Arindam Dakua, Jharsuguda collector Kunal Motiram Chavan, local MLA Tankadhar Tripathy and Bargarh MP Pradip Purohit.According to the letter, among the major vacancies are also 10 of the 15 tax and fee collector posts, seven of 10 junior assistant posts and five senior assistant posts. Both sanctioned junior engineer posts are vacant. Vacancies also exist in posts of head assistant, homeopathy doctor, work sarkar, peon/chowkidar and amin.Panigrahi said Jharsuguda was witnessing rapid urban growth and increasing civic requirements. “The municipality requires immediate filling of all essential vacant posts to ensure timely, efficient and uninterrupted civic services,” Panigrahi said, also highlighting the forthcoming retirement of the municipal engineer on Oct 31. It could further affect the municipality’s technical capacity and supervision of development works, he said.Panigrahi sought deployment of adequate interim manpower until the sanctioned vacancies are filled. “The govt must take responsibility for addressing this critical manpower crisis without further delay and ensure that the required staff are deployed at the earliest,” he said.The staff-position statement also shows that the municipality is using work-charged, contractual and outsourced personnel for some functions, including sanitation, electrical engineering, programme implementation and technical consultancy.