Er. Sachin Tickoo
On 12th Dec 2018, then Chief Secretary B.V.R Subarmaniyam in a jam packed press conference at SKICC Srinagar in presence of His Excellency Governor Jammu and Kashmir had strongly depicted the plight of all engineering departments which have been forced to run on in- charge system basis and even sitting Chief Engineers across all engineering departments were substantively only Assistant Engineers. Acting on this the PW(R&B), PW(Hyd.), Mechanical Engineering wings of the State engineering Services , worked swiftly to clear the regularization proposal of their engineers and today the backlog has been exhausted and regular promotions are taking place instead of in-charge promotions in these Engineering departments.
To address this chronic issue in Power Development Department the State Administrative Council in its meeting held on 22.10.2019 had directed the proposal for regular promotions of the Power development department be processed on fast-track at the departmental level without referring to Public Service commission as one-time exemption and whole process was supposed to be completed within 02 months by30.11.2019(GO No. 191-PDD of2019dated23.10.2019) with an aim of settle this issue in PDD once for all.
Accordingly General Administrative Department vide its order no–308-JK[GAD] of 2020, Dated-02/03/2020 constituted a high powered committee under the chairmanship of Administrative Secretary Power Development Department to examine , scrutinize and recommend the cases of the engineers of Power Development department for regularization. The committee had in its fold members of Finance department, Law department and General administration department among others. The proposals vetted by this empowered committee had to be submitted to the establishment committee headed by Chief Secretary.
The exercise which had to be completed in 2 months, has failed badly and even as we talk about this at end of 2025 , six years post the SAC decision, the Chief Engineers , Superintending Engineers and down the line cadres have continuously superannuated as Assistant Engineers or even as Junior Engineers substantively and have been deprived of their hard earned accrued benefits resulting in huge loss in their pensionary emoluments.
The Empowered committee in the past two years has not even been able to clear the queries raised by Establishment committee in respect of the proposal for only 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 career progression , despite the fact that the State Cabinet vide its decision no: 109/6/2018 Dated: 11/05/2018 had approved the Assured career progression scheme for Engineering Gzaetted Services along with the similar scheme for the Gazetted Police and JKAS services . However in the Governor administration as the popular government had fallen, vide SRO 215 of 2018 Dated 18th May 2018 that Cabinet Decision was implemented only in favour of the Police and JKAS and Engineers were left in lurch despite similar arrangements for Doctors/VAS already in place. It has been a struggle since then for Engineers to draw any decision in their favour under the UT administration, with delaying tactics being adopted ranging from setting up of committee’s/sub committee’s vide OM No: GAD-SERVOGEN/46 /2022 Dated: 28/11/2022 & Govt order no-1339-JK GAD of 2024 Dated: 09/07/2024 to examine the demand/issue of Assured career progression from various other services also.
The pain and trauma through which the entire lot of brilliant engineers are going through who have even received Gold Medals for their excellent services to the State are being deprived of regularization benefits and some of them died in harness awaiting for the day of recognition /regularization.
The Government if it is sincere about running the power development department as a business unit must not neglect the Human Resources who hold the key to the turnaround of the Power Sector in Jammu and Kashmir. The current vacancy position of the Power Development Department stands as Managing Director -02, Joint MD-01, Executive Director -04, Secretary Technical-01, Chief Engineer-06, Superintending Engineer-22, Executive Engineer- 53, AEE-118,AE-200 & JE-350 which is against the sanctioned strength of 1981 and the prospective structures and manpower requirements reflected in unbundling reports by professional HR consultants rendered to Department have asked for proportionate increase of manpower at all levels given that the assets increased by nearly 5000 times since last so many years and are facing lack of proper supervision in absence of requisite manpower.
It is therefore very much clear that the department has ushered into era of reforms with least focus on the resolution of basic HR issues like regularization and Assured career progression which are a cornerstone for the providing necessary impetus to push the intellectual manpower towards growth and turnaround of the J&K Power Sector. The power Development Department has over the years given a lot of components /packages of RDSS/ SMART metering projects to central Pubic sector undertakings but the progress achieved by them is far less than the Progress of works completed by the unbundled corporations of JPDCL/KPDCL/JKPTCL manned by the JKPDD Engineers despite acute manpower crisis and Chief Minister Omar Abdullah in the Power Minster’s Conference has dwelled into this subject and brought to fore the rapid advances made by the Engineers of PDD working in these corporations. It has therefore raised the expectations and hopes that the elected government shall do justice with the Power Engineers in particular and engineering fraternity of J&K in general.
(The writer is General Secretary JKEEGA J&K and Vice-Chairman AIPEF)