Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, July 10: All Jammu and Kashmir Graduate Engineers Association (Civil) all cadres,led by its State president Mujib Tak and State general secretary Gandeep Pargal met the Minister for R&B Naeem Akhtar here and submitted a detailed memorandum of demands.
The appeal made by the Association in print media in March, 2017 was re-produced before the Minister. A threadbare discussion on all the burning issues was made which included release of running grades (Assured Career Progress), one time regularization /confirmation of services of engineers, filling up of all the vacant posts at all levels by way of promotions, review of engineering cadre, rejection of fake degrees, removal of pay anomalies, promotions to be made as per rules, enhancement of fixed TA, restoration of 80% quota for graduate junior engineers for promotion to AEs (DPC and PSC).
The Minister was apprised about the running grades given to graduate engineers in neighbouring States like, HP, Punjab, Haryana where after completion of 14 years, 14 years and 17 years of gazetted service respectively pay band 4 was being provided to graduate engineers and the same pattern already approved was demanded to be released in J&K State. Regarding regularization/confirmation of services of engineers the exemption of ARPS in old cases was demanded. The deputation also informed the Minister that the 2009 batch was the worst sufferer as the graduate JEs were stagnated on the JE post for the last eight years. The Minister was made well aware of the strong resentment of the association against some district administrations in the State where engineers were being harassed unnecessarily and declared that if it is not stopped immediately, the association will be compelled to go on mass agitation.
The Minister gave a patient hearing and after going through all the issues assured the association that their burning issues will be resolved very soon and on spot instructions were also given by him to concerned authorities to redress the issues immediately.
Among others, who were with the deputation included Z A Malik; Gopal Sharma; Kulbhushan Bahu; Zulfikar Shapoo; Arafat Masud; Anil Thapa; Sudhir Kalsi; Rajesh Sumbria; Anil Gupta; Ravinder Verma; Rajinder Kumar Sharma; and Rahat Gupta.
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