PSEB engineers convene meeting

Even now, one post of SE and seven posts of Senior XENs were lying vacant.At UBDC Panthankot and Shanan power houses, the posts are short by 50 per cent and at Ropar Thermal Plant, about 20 posts of engineers are lying vacant. By this, the working of power houses is being severely affected, Bedi said.

Bedi said for the Ranjit Sagar Dam Project costing about Rs 3,000 crore, the management had not paid any attention towards the deployment and training of shift and O and M staff, while the first unit was expected to be commissioned in March, 1999 and engineers required a minimum of six to nine months’ training. He warned that neglect of thermal and hydro power houses could lead to serious damages.

Bedi said the association had also protested to the chairman against adopting double standards and discriminating against the the engineers. While the board management had recently created more than 2,100 posts of technical subordinates as per work load ending in March, 1995, no such posts of engineers have been created since 1976. This has resulted not only in appalling levels of stagnation but has also affected supervision due to increased span control.

The strength of engineers in PSEB as compared to other employees, is the lowest in the country. Against the average five to nine engineers per 100 employees in other State Electrical Boards, there are only 2.66 engineers per 100 employees in PSEB. Moreover, during the last six years, the strength of the engineers has increased by 7.24 per cent against increase in the strength of technical staff by 32 per cent and class four employees by 29 per cent.