Post-Games,engineers need work: PWD

Top department officials said they have submitted for the Delhi Cabinet’s approval a proposal to restructure its engineering cadre to assign these engineers to more productive jobs.

“Most of these engineers don’t have the kind of work they did before the Commonwealth Games. Nearly all projects are complete and so many engineers are not required on those projects anymore,” a top government official said.

At least 70 new engineering posts across ranks were created before the international sporting event to build a strong workforce to complete the infrastructure projects undertaken by the government,a PWD official said.

The Home Ministry created these posts after the Delhi government raised worries that the existing engineering workforce of the PWD may not be able to complete projects in such a short time,an official said.

“Technically,the posts have now become redundant because they were created specifically for the sporting event. Most engineers are either handling maintenance or just following up on work already done,” the official said.

But the government doesn’t want these posts to be scrapped,saying more engineers were in any case required to work on the city’s growing infrastructure needs.

In its Cabinet proposal,the PWD has offered various options to restructure the engineering cadre so these additional posts can be retained and utilised.

“One option is to assign maintenance jobs to these posts. The department already maintains many government buildings,and more are coming up. We require more engineers to execute this job effectively,” a senior government official said.

The PWD has already submitted the Cabinet proposal,which may come up for consideration anytime now,an official said.