GEBEA wants 5,000 vacant posts filled; fraud alleged

The Gujarat Electricity Board Engineers' Association GEBEA has demanded that instead of outsourcing the maintenance and operations work to private firms,about 5,000 vacant posts in the company should be filled.

The Gujarat Electricity Board Engineers8217; Association GEBEA of Gujarat Energy Transmission Company Ltd GETCO has demanded that instead of outsourcing the maintenance and operations work in GETCO to private firms,about 5,000 vacant posts in the company should be filled will immediate effect.

R B Savaliya general secretary of the GEBEA-GETCO told this to PTI here today. An annual general meeting of GEBEA GETCO was held on Sunday.

He said that Gujarat government8217;s ban on new recruitment in GETCO since 1992-93 should now be lifted as the existing staff was overburdened.

Outsourcing contract in the 450 substations out of the total 1,207 sub stations has already been given to private power companies at a huge cost,imposing heavy financial burden on GETCO,a subsidiary of erstwhile Gujarat Electricity Bard GEB,8221; he said.

He added,8221;While the Gujarat government is planning to set up new substations and laying of new transmission lines for 24215;7 power supply to farmers and to 18,000 villages across the state,about 5,000 posts are still vacant,in the absence of staff recruitment.8221;

Savaliya said that in addition to carrying out their daily chores,the GETCO engineers have been entrusted with the responsibility of training a team of eight persons each of the contracted private companies,who get their monthly remunerations from these private companies.

How can the maintenance work of Rs 5 crore assets of electric sub station be given to contractual workers,who might leave their companies after getting trained? he questioned.

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Savaliya alleged that the aim of outsourcing was to benefit to the private power companies,8221;as a monthly amount of Rs 1.20 lakh is given to the private operator for each of the 450 sub stations.8221;

8220;GETCO employees are capable of carrying out the work at much cheaper rate. But there is deliberate move behind not filling up of vacancies and recruiting new staff in GETCO as most of the GETCO staff would retire after 2015,8221; he said.

Office bearers of GEBEA GETCO R B Jadeja and J S Rathod informed that a campaign to unite engineers and educate masses on dangers of outsourcing in the substations,would soon be taken up.