Shillong, June 14: The Association of Power Engineers, Meghalaya Energy Corporation Limited (MeECL) on Friday has given a month deadline to fill up the vacancies by promoting junior engineers to assistant engineers.
The decision was taken during the general body meeting of the association which was held at the Soso Tham auditorium.
“We would request the management within a month to fill up the vacancies by promoting junior engineer to assistant engineers irrespective of the recruitment process of those who have completed service of four years be it diploma or graduate engineers to place it to the rank of assistant executive engineers,” president of the association, Arju Dkhar told reporters.
He said that the association requested the government to fill up these vacancies on priority at the earliest so that field employees be it the contractual, jugali, linemen and other field staff who are there in the substation and power stations are given relief.
The president of the association said that as per service rules regulations, 1996, junior engineers are class II employees of the organisation but their pay scale is Class III employees.
According to him, only after completion of five years the junior engineer gets a pay scale of Class II officers.
Dkhar said that they would like to urge upon the management to ensure that junior engineers get their due right as per the service rules regulation which should commensurate with the pay scale of the Class II officers that in the revision of pay scale which is to be effective from January 1, 2025.
He further informed that there are 1600 to 1700 contractual employees at different levels. But vacancies will not be less than 1000 vacancies.
According to him, at the moment the file has to go to the Power department for approval even for appointment of one contractual employee file has to the Power department for his approval.
“We request the government to kindly fill up on priority basis within the time period of two or three years and at the same time prepare a road map to fill up the vacancies at all levels, especially at the field level,” Dkhar added.
Replying to a query, he said that there have been times where the MeECL was financially stable and comfortable.
According to him, the association had to face the crisis in view for its negligence to recover its dues.
“And also very sad to say that there are instances where decisions have been made which are against the very survival of the institutions. Hence we would like to avoid such a decision henceforth,” he said.