Alleging that the union Power Ministry had initiated a move to formulate fresh recruitment rules and contemplating open advertisement for the post of whole-time members in the Bhakra Beas Management Board (BBMB), the All India Power Engineers Federation (AIPEF) has opposed the move and urged the Chief Ministers of Punjab and Haryana to take up the matter seriously as it was also against the past practice of six decades which implies the whole time member could not be from outside partner States.

The association said that to contemplate open advertisement for the post of the whole-time member is a grave injustice to the major stakeholder partner states.
At present the Member (Power) is from Punjab and Member (Irrigation) is from Haryana. The past practice was to select the BBMB Chairman from outside the Partner States to ensure impartial functioning.
AIPEF has obtained a copy of ministry of power letter (dated July 13 this year) to Haryana chief minister under RTI, which mentions that new rules are being formulated for the selection of members in the BBMB.
Notably, in a previous meeting of North Zone Council, there was some reference to make some change in procedure to select Member Power and Member Irrigation which was strongly objected by Punjab and dropped.

“The Ministry of Power had suddenly repatriated the Member Irrigation BBMB in September last year. Haryana government had sent the names of three irrigation engineers for the post of Member Irrigation in October last year. The post of member irrigation BBMB has been kept vacant for the last one year for no reason. We have urged the chief ministers that the position as indicated in the ministry of power, the letter needs to be seriously considered because the main issue of principle is that since the partner States are the owners of BBMB and hence the two posts of the whole-time member must be from the partner states only”, said AIPEF spokesperson.
The AIPEF said, “The ministry of power is trying to reopen the selection procedures without consulting all the partner States and this is highly objectionable. Moreover to proceed in secretive and non-transparent manner is not acceptable at all.
The Engineers Federation cautioned the Ministry of Power not to make drastic policy changes on the selection of members of the Bhakra Beas Management Board (BBMB)wiyhout consulting stakeholders in a transparent way.