Report by Kamgar Ekta Committee (KEC) correspondent
A Federal Council meeting of All India Engineers Federation (AIPEF) was held at Nagpur Maharashtra under the Chairmanship of Er. Shailendra Dubey, P Ratnakar Rao, Secretary General.
The meeting deliberated on the issues faced by power engineers in particular and employees of power sector in general.
The participants discussed the imminent threats of direct and indirect privatisation whether through joint ventures or through modes of Tariff Based Competitive Bidding (TBCB) in the transmission sector.
The meeting also discussed the failure of the Central PSUs like RECPDCL and other entities who are implementing the smart metering projects in various parts of the country.
The quality control of smart meters has been compromised leading to the situation that thousands of smart meters are lying in damaged condition and honest consumers are facing host of issues by way of non-billing or cumulative billing for no fault of theirs. The damaged smart meters are not being replaced.
Even thousands of meters have turned non-communicating and readings are not coming to data centre thereby exposing the poor interfacing and lack of proper planning done in smart meter implementation.
It is creating a big challenge to the power sector employees who have to face consumers. They are feeling helpless as the infrastructure has to be managed and maintained by the smart meter implementing agency, who have failed to fulfil their responsibilities as per the tender.
The delegation of the Jammu & Kashmir Electricity Engineering Graduates Association (JKEEGA), represented by Er. Sachin Tickoo, Vice Chairman AIPEF and General Secretary JKEEGA, Rajeshwar Jamwal, Vice President, Ankush Gupta and Ankush Sharma (Provincial Secretaries) drew attention problems being faced by engineers and employees of Jammu and Kashmir. The assured career progression scheme for Gazetted Engineering services which is prevailing across the country has not been implemented conveniently by the Govt of J&K. While Engineers have been made scapegoats by suspending them and putting them into prolonged suspension for over 6 months and not taking into consideration the infrastructure challenges and manpower constraints they are facing on ground. Out of 2500 posts in engineering cadre, nearly 800 positions are vacant in J&K.
A resolution was passed calling upon the management of power sector in J&K and political leadership to find a solution to the adhocism in the department and non-regularisation of engineers and employees of Power Development Department.
The AIPEF put up a strong appeal to the Central government to desist from introducing direct or indirect privatisation measures which have adversely affected not only the employees of power sector but also have not been good for consumers.