The Diplomat Desk
Jammu, TDD,JKEEGA after serving 26-days notice to Government on 04-12-2024 for resolving its genuine demand of Regularization of all engineers of JKPDD as per SAC decision of 2019 has vowed to continue its protest call scheduled for 30-12-2024 as no progress on the issue has been achieved till date. Pertinently the decision of resorting to democratic means of protest was taken by Guidance Council of JKEEGA, an apex body of power engineers of J&K, both at Srinagar and Jammu on 04-12-2024. Briefing about the issues faced by power engineers Er. Sachin Tickoo, General Secretary JKEEGA while addressing press conference here at Press Club Jammu and Er. Hidayatullah in Kashmir stated that the Power engineers of JKPDD feel alienated and neglected as basic HR issues faced by power engineers have not been settled by successive Governments which has led to huge distress amongst the cadre. The Power Engineering fraternity has been continuously longing for their confirmation on their respective posts/grades from decades. The adhocism and stopgap arrangement at the time of interim promotions without regularisation has caused frustration and distress among the rank and file of the fraternity which needs to be done away within the right earnest.
It is worthwhile to mention here that Chief Engineers/Superintending Engineers are superannuating in the grades of Assistant Engineers or even Junior Engineers which speaks volumes about the total indifference and humiliating treatment to the services rendered by them spreading over decades culminating in reduced pension benefits. The issue has further been worsened by casual approach of administrative department of JKPDD which despite of lapse of more than 10 months have not been able to reply to query raised by Establishment Cum Selection Committee in a meeting held on 27-02-2024 till date in respect of first lot of 250 Engineers who have joined the department as Junior Engineers & Assistant Engineers from 1986 to 2001 despite the fact that Chief Secretary repeatedly has asked for speedy disposal of the regularization proposal in the review meetings. The inertia in progress can be gauged from the fact that the SAC decision for one time exemption from referral to PSC had been taken with an aim to address the chronic issue affecting nearly 2500 engineers of Power Development Department promoted from time to time from Junior Engineers to Chief Engineers till 2019. The fact is that today all sitting Chief Engineers are Assistant Engineers/Junior Engineers substantively , which had badly affected the morale of the PSC/SSRB appointees over the years vis a vis their counterparts appointed and working in sister engineering departments/CPSUs.
Further apathy with Engineering Gazetted Services was about Assured,TDD
