PSEB Engineers to launch protest
Vinod Kumar Gupta
Saturday August 8, 2009
Patiala

PSEB Engineers’ Association has decided to launch agitation as the Board management has failed to resolve long pending issues.
The executive committee of Association decided to hold protest meetings this week all over the state as board failed on its own commitments regarding downgrading of ACR’s of Ropar engineers, curtailing the allowances in name of financial crunch.
Association in a press note said that over 150 engineers of Ropar Thermal Plant submitted a written memorandum against the working of then General Manager of the plant and also cautioned the management that the GM due to personal reasons would downgrade rating of the officers in their ACRs. Board management failed to rein the officer who spoiled the ACRs of all the active members of the Association. The engineers of the plant have been agitating on the issue but despite repeated assurance by the Chairman, no tangible step has been taken to address the grievances of the engineers. The agitation of the thermal plant engineers is all set to be intensified next week due to indifferent attitude of the management.
HS Bedi President of the Association criticised the withdrawal and curtailing of various perks/allowances of the engineers in the name of austerity measures. The cut on these perks may not save more than Rs 4 to Rs 5 crore annually for PSEB but has affected the working of officers adversely. PSEB on other hand is wasting crores of rupees on building Rest house in the constituency of prominent person. He criticised the board’s decision to abolish posts created to retain thermal experts at various thermal plants
Bhupinder Singh General Secretary of the Association criticised the management for its failure to protect honest and hard working field officers. The honest officers were transferred only because of their relentless drive to check theft of power.
Several officers and employees have been charge sheeted due to their alleged lack of supervision to control poor quality of work executed by various contractors but not a single contractor has been blacklisted for poor quality of work. .