PSPCL trying to fill its empty coffers by withdrawing facilities from its employees – PSEBEA
Kanwar Inder Singh/ royalpatiala.in
Punjab state power corporation limited (PSPCL) who is entrusted to lighten up Punjab, is giving shock to its employees. PSPCL seems to be an anti employee corporation. This year, the power corporation gave signals to abolish 40,000 posts, removed its security agency PESCO employees and many other anti employees decisions taken by it, in the name of curtailing expenditure.
In a yearender shock to its officers ,PSPCL has withdrawn the broadband allowed to its around 175 SE’s at their residence vide office order no 192 dated 17/12/2020 of Dy Secy/ General. These employees have BSNL broadband, at their residences, as per the power corporation policy. The staff came into shock, in this tech savvy era, and condemned the retrograde steps being taken by PSPCL management in the name of lowering expenditure.
This decision of the powercom is in contrast to the Punjab water supply and sanitation department , another govt department decision to allot Laptop for officers upto a rank of SDE’s and tablets for field staff (JE level) with an expenditure of Rs 191.13 lacs, for smooth functioning of the department.
“All progressive organisations whether in public sector or private sector are trying their best to introduce Information Technology in their day to day working while the same is altogether been reversed in PSPCL where the IT related facilities provided to its employees are either being withdrawn or denied in the name of saving cost. Besides the above circular withdrawing the broadband facility, there is a long list of such retrograde decisions taken recently wherein PSPCL management has tried their best to deny its employees facilities related to IT services. Although, the officers should be motivated to use laptop/desktops for improving the efficiency of organisation, but PSPCL discourages the same as it has failed to provide engineer officers laptops considering it as a luxury item. Moreover all officers are expected to use Smartphones in their day to day working, but the cost incurred by the officers on them has been continuously denied to them. It appears PSPCL is implementing IT at the cost of its employees and engineers” said PSEB engineers association president Er Jasvir Singh Dhiman.
Er Ajaypal Singh Atwal, general secretary of the engineers association said “the height of this policy is that the engineers are not given individual internet connection in offices and the limited bandwidth Internet connection is required to be shared by 10-12 officers, while they have been asked to perform all their online activities i.e. e-tendering, office communication and office work online and now, in pandemic situation, management is asking for online meetings and video calling with a single net connection with insufficient bandwidth. The plea taken is that all officers have been provided with mobile internet, it is a pity that the officer who has taken this plea does not seem to be aware that the Mobile Internet gets interrupted as whenever a call is received on the mobile, the use of mobile internet on desktop through tethering and simultaneous voice calls is also not possible. Further, except for a few locations the coverage and speed of mobile internet is still limited.”
They further said that the “association condemn such retrograde decisions of PSPCL management, whereas the cost saved on all such decisions can be covered by the improvement in the efficiency by proper use of IT facilities. Association demands that the subject cited circular be withdrawn, laptops/ tablet computers be provided to all officers upto the level of AE and mobile cost as per actual be reimbursed.”
Atwal further added that “If still desired the corporation can lower its unnecessary expenditure by closing the Chandigarh/ Bathinda and Delhi rest houses as they serve no purpose in improving the efficiency of the corporation, while IT instruments such as laptop/desktop, provision of Broadband connections to each officer will go in great way to improve efficiency of company thereby improving the services to consumers.”
December 29,2020
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