Extreme shortage of manpower remains critical issue
Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Dec 11: The Assured Career Progression for the Engineers remained a distant dream notwithstanding series of assurances given to them through their registered Associations by the successive Governments. All other major services now have the Assured Career Progression in place for them.
The dejected engineers who felt betrayed by the Government for not honouring its own commitments given at several platforms have now called for mass protest leave of power engineers of JKPDD on December 30, 2024.
Pointing out that even Chief Engineers and Superintending Engineers are retiring as Incharge and confirmed only in the rank of AE or AEE, some of the engineers approached the Excelsior saying the Government had promised to bring in the Assured Career Progression for the engineers on the lines of Jammu and Kashmir Administrative Services (JKAS) and Jammu and Kashmir Police Services (JKPS) but even after passage of five years, no such policy has been announced.
“A decision was taken by the Government in 2019 and the Employees Committee wrote to the Establishment Committee which raised certain queries. Over a year has passed and since then there has been no progress,” they said, adding the engineers are feeling extreme stagnation and adhocism but the successive Governments are least concerned.
Apart from this, there has been huge shortfall of manpower and in some cases, the strength notified in 1981 is also not complete resulting into assigning of multiple charges to some of the engineers, they said.
Calling for an end to adhocism, the engineers said it is high time that the Committee set up by the Government finalizes its recommendations at the earliest and announce Assured Career Progression for them otherwise they will be left with no option but to take extreme steps for which the Government will be solely responsible.
Individually as well as at the levels of the Engineering Associations, the issue of Assured Career Progression and extreme shortage of manpower strength have repeatedly been brought to the notices of several authorities including at the highest level but there has been no positive response excepting assurances given every time which never materialized.
Even the high-level committees set up by no less than the bureaucrat like the former Chief Secretary failed to either submit their reports or were virtually abandoned midway leading to no concrete action on part of the Government.
“Six years have passed since the State Administrative Council (SAC) decision but the Chief Engineers, Superintending Engineers and down the line cadres have continuously superannuated as Assistant Engineers or even to the Junior Engineers substantively and have been deprived of their hard earned accrued benefits resulting into huge loss to their pensionary emoluments,” the aggrieved engineers said.
They regretted that the Empowered Committee set up for the purpose in the past two years has not even been able to clear the queries raised by the Establishment Committee in respect of the proposal for only 250 Engineers who have joined the department as Junior Engineers and Assistant Engineers from 1986 to 2001 despite the that fact that the Chief Secretary repeatedly asked for speedy disposal of regularization.
“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 Jammu and Kashmir are being deprived of regularization benefits and some of them even died in harness awaiting for the day of recognition/regularization,” they said.
The post Assured Career Progression remains distant dream for J&K Engineers appeared first on Daily Excelsior.