AIPEF urges J&K Lt. Governor to resolve state’s engineers issues

AIPEF urges J&K Lt. Governor to resolve state’s engineers issues

Kanwar Inder Singh/ royalpatiala.in News/ September 21,2023

All India Power Engineers Federation (AIPEF) urges Lt. Governor to intervene in case of engineers working in the power department so that their basic issues are resolved in a time bound manner and engineers would not have to resort to two days protests on September 25 and 26.for basic issues. In case they are forced to resort to two days protest, AIPEF fully supports the J and K electrical engineer’s demand.

Their long pending demands include  regularisation of service, regular promotions and regular recruitments, non -fulfilment of written commitments which are  jeopardising the normal working of Power Development Department of J&K.

V K Gupta spokesperson AIPEF said that the pay of J and K engineers is much less than their counterparts of Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand though the nature of work is exactly similar. Even after retirement the pension of J and K engineers is fixed at a lower level because of ad hoc promotions during service period.

The engineers working in PDD went on one day protest on September9 in various cities of the union territory, demanding settlement of their demands but nothing has been done till date and thus the power engineers have been forced to hold a protest again for 48hrs on 25th & 26th of September 2023.

The Jammu and Kashmir Electrical Engineering Graduates Association [JKEEGA] has already held a peaceful protest on September 9 in Srinagar, Jammu and other cities wherein protest was attended by large numbers of engineers.

JKEEGA President Sachin Tickoo and General Secretary Pirzada Hidayatullah said that the department is facing toughest time as inaction of successive administrations on the core issues like regular promotions, filling of vacancies, recruitment of Junior Engineers and even disbursing salaries on time has led to chaos in the power corporations.

Highlighting the issues, V K Gupta spokesperson AIPEF said that at the level of executive engineer 50%   posts are lying vacant at present and promotion files of assistant executive engineers to next level are pending for the last one year. In addition to this scores of posts from Chief Engineer to Junior Engineer level are vacant which is also hampering the functioning of the department. In absence of any positive outcome, it would become impossible for engineers to achieve standards and targets set by the Government.

AIPEF once again urges the Lt. Governor to intervene and issues like timely promotions against vacant posts, and recruitment at the Junior Engineer are resolved at the earliest.