Fast cum dharna by the Punjab Power Engineers leaders

April 17, 2018 06:25 PM

Punjab News Express/Vinod Gupta
PATIALA: Extended Executive Committee of PSEB Engineers’ Association held a Fast-cum-Dharna today in front of PSPCL Head Office, Patiala to protest against non fulfillment of their demands by PSPCL/PSTCL Managements.
The dharna was led by Sanjeev Sood President of Association and joined by about 80 engineers. The main issues include delay in grant of initial start pay of Rs. 18030/- to all AE’s, shrinking of state share generation due to closure of state sector thermal plants at Bathinda & Ropar, non-operationalisation of captive coal mine allotted to Punjab and other issues related to service and working conditions of engineers.
Devinder Goyal, General Secretary of Association said that t instead of resolving these issues, PSPCL/PSTCL managements are delaying the resolution of issues already discussed and agreed in the meeting held in December last year.
Huge resentment prevailed among power engineers due to indifferent attitude of the PSPCL/PSTCL managements regarding pending issues particularly the initial start of Rs. 18030/- to remaining AEs which was cleared way back by Previous Govt. but management is dilly-dallying implementation whereas all other categories of employees have same pay scale for employees of erstwhile PSEB and those recruited after formation of PSPCL/PSTCL. 
Further the Executive committee decided that if the issues raised by Engineers’ Association are not resolved in a time bound manner, then the agitation will be further intensified. Engineers forewarned that continuation of indifferent approach would lead to a situation that consumers may face severe power cuts in peak summer season and responsibility of the same shall rest with managements of PSPCL/PSPCL.