Shortage of staff, Karnataka to award work in 3 departments
View of Vidhana Soudha in Bengaluru. The direction to outsource regulatory functions is in line with the recommendations of the Karnataka Administrative Reforms Commission-2, according to Harsh Gupta, principal secretary to the government, Praja Seva department. | Photo credit: K. Murali Kumar
Due to staff shortages, the Karnataka government has decided to outsource regulatory functions such as inspection, verification and certification in three critical departments to private firms.
These include Factories, Boilers, Industrial Safety and Health in the Labor Department, Food and Drug Safety Administration in the Health and Family Welfare Department, and Legal Metrology in the Food and Civil Supplies Department.
This comes close to concerns that the Food and Drug Safety Department is overwhelmed by the large number of facilities it must inspect. Health and Family Welfare Minister UT Khader came up with the idea of deploying citizens and retired officials from taluk-level departments to act as force multipliers.
Recommendations of the Karnataka Administrative Reforms Commission
The direction to outsource regulatory functions is in line with the recommendations of the Karnataka Administrative Reforms Commission-2, which said, “Wherever sufficient inspectors or staff are not available to ensure compliance, the department must rely on the services of reputed third-party agencies,” said a letter from Harsh Gupta, principal secretary to the Praja Seva government, sent to the three departments.
“Relevant central laws and regulations already recognize third-party testing, audit or inspection in some of these areas and these may be adopted to the extent permitted,” Mr Gupta said, asking officials to “examine the relevant state rules, notifications and procedures and adopt the necessary modifications to implement them”.
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Statutory powers of inspection, sampling, seizure and prosecution shall remain with department officials. They can then focus on risk-based controls and targeted inspections, guided by third-party audit findings. If no periodic inspection is prescribed, periodic verification by a third party may be prescribed as a best practice. This would ensure a minimum level of compliance even if the department’s inspectors are unable to visit such facilities regularly, the letter further said.
Action plan
The three departments have been told to draw up an action plan for the Praja Seva department with a timeline to implement it. They were told to “identify the inspections, verifications and certifications in your department that can be outsourced to or supported by third-party agencies and establish the eligibility criteria, accreditation requirements, fee structure and conditions for engagement of reputable third-party agencies and undertake empanelment”.
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The departments were also told to “put in place a review mechanism to oversee the departments”. This should include spot test inspections of the work of agencies and action against agencies for invalidity’.
Published – 22 Oct 2026 12:20 PM IST