STATE TIMES NEWS
JAMMU: A deputation of Diploma Engineers under the banner of Council of Engineers on Wednesday met Minister for PHE and I&FC Sham Lal Choudhary and expressed resentment about the recent notification for promotion of 23 Junior Engineers (JEs) (Diploma Holder Engineers-Civil) to Assistant Engineers (AEs) against the availability of about 150 AEs.
Submitting a memorandam, they apprised Sham Lal that government has misinterpreted the post position of AEs pertaining to diploma cadre which was generated to redress the stagnation among the diploma engineering cadre as hundreds of diploma holder engineers were not promoted even after rendering 37-38 years of unblemished service and had retired as JEs. The minister was apprised that after decades of struggle, the erstwhile leadership of Diploma Engineers Association has succeeded to apprise the state government about stagnation prevailing in their cadre and subsequently state government has formed a high level establishment-cum-selection committee for addressing the issue, which in turn has made recommendation for conversion of JE-I Posts to Assistant Engineers and consequently a large number of diploma engineers were promoted and felt a sigh of a relief to some extent.
Er. Kuldeep Singh, Secretary General informed that hundreds of diploma engineers are still stagnated despite 34 years of service and are waiting for their turn out of these career progression posts broadly known as stagnation redressal posts of AEs, as and when these get vacated due to promotion and retirement of existing AEs. He said any deviation of these posts shall lead to injustice to diploma engineers waiting for redressal.
The Minister while giving a patient hearing to the deputation assured that justice will be delivered and no post shall be allowed to deviate. Er. V.K Trikha, Sunil Sharma, S.C Kerni, D.S Jamwal, Romesh Sharma, Vikas Sharma, Vivek Kohli and Gopal Abrol also accompanied the deputation.