Power department junior engineers protest against service policy

Our Reporter
Dimapur, May 19 (EMN): Power Department Junior Engineers’ Service Association (PDJESA) on Thursday began a three-day democratic protest against the Nagaland Engineering Service Policy across the state.

As part of the protest, around 179 Power department junior engineers (JEs) will wear black badges to work for three days followed by mass casual leave for another three days, the association president L Hekuto and general secretary Razouvoyi Francis Rakho told Eastern Mirror on Thursday.

The protest is being called to express resentment against the Nagaland Engineering Service Policy formulated by the state government in 2012. The association had held a meeting with the department’s principal secretary on Wednesday (May 18), but the result was ‘not positive.’

The association, therefore, proposed to go ahead with the protest and will continue to do so unless the genuine demand of the association is fulfilled, the JEs affirmed.

Giving details of the meeting with the department’s principal secretary, the association said that since the Nagaland Engineering Service Policy covers three departments –Power department, Public Works Department (PWD) and Public Health Engineering Department (PHED) — the government could not give assurance to just one department’s representation.

However, the JEs maintained that the other two departments had also extended support to their cause and genuine demand.  “There is no involvement from the government and no positive response as well towards our genuine demand”, the association stated.

The JEs in Dimapur pointed out that there were many junior engineers who had entered the department as JE, served and retired as JE and many others who had been working as JE for the past 30-33 years without promotion.

 “Because of the Nagaland Engineering Service Policy, the JEs are stagnant causing our career to a standstill”, they said.

The core issue of the PDJESA demand is for opportunity of promotion to the next higher post within a reasonable time during one’s length of service as is constitutionally entitled.

The association’s demand to resolve the promotion issue include promotion quota till Superintendent Engineer (SE) irrespective of the qualification against the total sanctioned posts ie, executive engineer-25% and SE-10% as per the Nagaland Engineering Service Rules 1997, which was abolished.

“70% quota for the post should be reserved for the promotion of JEs and 30% quota for the direct recruitment to relieve stagnation. Qualifying years for promotion to the next higher post should be reduced to one year only in view of the fact that the JEs remain stagnant in their service for good number of years and only the lucky few gets promoted to the post of SDO and therefore most of the promotes from JE retire as SDO without the opportunity of getting promoted”, it reiterated.

The government should review the Nagaland Engineering Service Rules and invite all stakeholders particularly group-B categories while formulating the policy and rules, the association demanded while expecting a positive response from the government.

The association has also conveyed to the public to bear with the inconvenience and sought support in their genuine demands from the government. It also informed that if there is no positive response from the government, the association will have a general meeting for further course of action.