Sudhir Kumar Sharma
The Government of Jammu and Kashmir vide Government order No. 191-PDD of 2019 dated 23.10.2019 announced restructuring and unbundling of Jammu & Kashmir PDD into various corporations and subsequently all the assets and liabilities were transferred on as is where is basis to these corporations. Similarly the existing engineering staff too was transferred on deputation to these corporations. The basic aim of unbundling and restructuring the department into corporations was to rid this all important sector from never ending poor efficiency and to incorporate five basic principles of “corporate governance” viz. transparency, accountability, responsibility, independence and fairness. The essential part of corporate governance quintessentially involves balancing the interests of many stakeholders which includes the management executives, customers, workers and off course the Government. The governance specifically refers to the set of rules, controls, policies and resolutions out in place to guide corporate behavior.
To start with, various organizations including those of engineers, Technicians and other workers were taken into confidence that improving their service conditions will be the top most priority of the Government to achieve the intended objectives of the unbundling. However all of them right from Lineman, Technicians and the Engineers, feel cheated to the extent that even their basic requirements have been brazenly given a damn care by those at the helm of affairs. A cursory look at their unending miseries have been underlined below to have insight into the pathetic condition of approximately 27000 strong but aging work force of Technicians and Engineers.
First and foremost is the pathetic working condition of the work force right from Lineman staff to the level of Chief Engineers which has been acknowledged by the then Chief Secretary of the State / UT BVR Subramanyam immediately upon his taking over the assignment,in a press briefing on 12th Dec. 2018. He pointed out “Incharge system” where even a Chief Engineer is substantively working as Assistant Executive Engineer. Hopes were high that good times are ahead for all of us as noneless than head of bureaucracy had realized the prevalence of bad precedence in the Engineering Departments as no seniority list existed above Assistant Executive Engineers. Even state Administrative council on 22nd Oct. 2019 had directed for regular promotions in Power Development Department without referring it to PSC as a one time exemption and whole exercise was to be completed by December 2019. One can imagine the care and concern of the bureaucratic setup that it took them around 09 months to even hold first meeting of the empowered committee in September 2020 to examine the proposal of the department to regularize around 224 engineers all of whom were retirees from 2000 to 2018, only to be rejected by the committee headed by the Chief Secretary on 29th July 2021 what a tragedy that regularization proposal which was to be completed within 02 months by Dec. 2019 was rejected after nearly 1 ½ years that too for those who were old retirees from 2000 to 2018 on the ground that their “Vigilance clearance” hasn’t been received despite administrative department having furnished integrity certificate in favour of each engineer. It begs a question- what are some ways that we can enable employees to feel the connection to their peers? I feel that for answers you need to ponder on injustice done to your coworkers. What is the state of affairs even after unbundling could be gauged from the fact that our Junior Engineers continue to get Rs 30 as fixed travel allowance per month even today despite all of them having been made to run from pillar to post to get it revised to a respectable level and guess what happened to this genuine demand, yes outrightly rejected by Finance Department. Same is the fate of ACP and other HR issues. Isn’t it a pitty that it happens only in JKPDD that a lineman enters and retires as lineman. Most of our junior engineers having entered in PDD have retired as JEs. Hats off to the moral and resolve of these engineers and technicians who don’t take to streets as a pressure tactics to get their demands fulfilled. Yet someday their forbearance and patience might wear thin as enough is enough.
Similar is the fate of Linemen and Technicians who are toiling hard to run the power system which has never seen improvement but only extensions due to political interference. One can imagine the plight of linemen staff when one linemen is looking after 40 or more substations with over 1500 consumers and line length running in tens of kilometers, irony is that even after toiling hard 24×7 a linemen only gets a meager salary and no incentives what so ever. The situation has slightly improved in case of need based workers who atleast now get paltry but regular wages.
Second is the peculiar situation for a distribution engineer viz-a viz containment of AT&C losses. This is a sector where Government has been quite serious yet the results haven’t been there to write home about. An engineer is not only fighting against few dishonest consumers but it’s a malaise where most of the electricity users knowingly or unknowingly are involved in and as a society we need to answer this in larger public interest. However the result will come once the 100% metering and LT cabling works are completed. Even then each user has to realize that each unit of electricity has some “cost behind it” and lets not waste it. Do we need to do “power policing” to prevent theft and illegal load from extracting unauthorized units or are we gona check it on our own as a responsible citizen.
Right now the authorities believe that higher AT&C losses are mainly attributable to distribution engineers and the field staff which again is a myopic view point over an issue which has other actors as well. To bring about a change there has to be focus on 100% metering , upgradation of old infrastructure technological intervention and more importantly institutionalized public awareness campaign as well. Some upgradation of distribution sector is underway however without 100% metering at feeder level and at consumer end the results won’t come and again at the receiving end of it will be the hapless engineers and staff with scant respect for truth behind the whole story. One wonders as to how unbundling would have turnaround higher AT&C losses without a revamp and other measures elaborated above. A road map on bringing down loss trajectory in proportionate to the investments made hold key to this all important sector.
Third is the lack of decision making ability due to the inherent procedural flaws and for real time results this aspect of financial independence and decision making has to go hand in hand as both are indispensable and intrinsic to arrest higher AT&C losses. Under corporate culture along with accountability comes independence and fairness and both are terrible missing post unbundling.
Although over the last couple of months the transmission distribution sector in the UT is showing positive improvement in terms of reliability and restoration due to concerted efforts of top engineers however the same could not be achieved and more importantly sustained due to yawning gap between the existing staff strength and required staff at linemen level with nil recruitment and ever increasing network so much so that a single linemen is looking after over 30 DTs and line length of over tens of Kms particularly in rural areas and is taking its toll on them. The creation of new Sub Divisions in various Districts proposed under unbundling hasn’t seen the light of the day so far thereby piling on the miseries of over stretched sub Divisions which ultimately hampers the desired output. The severity of staff strength is such that the day is not far when Junior Engineer or even an Assistant Executive Engineer has to take care of fuses in their vicinity under most compelling circumstances as such practice is now being reported from some areas. This is the plight of our engineers most of whom are working tirelessly day in and day out 24×7.
Lastly one of the important reforms urgently required is in making internal vigilance mechanism strong in these corporations so that perennial issues of audit and inspections are addressed technically. At present there is no “work manual” as in CPWD in Power Development Department which can act as a guide for undertaking works as per standards and approvals. In the absence of works manual the querries on various works is raised by various audits and also physical verification teams although the works are executed physically upto the marks yet due to weak academic link various audit paras are raised which could be avoided.
In the light of the facts elucidated above unless we acknowledge that it is not engineers only who could be held responsible for the present state of affairs in Power Department as the backs of these engineers are against the wall for the reason which are mostly beyond their control and a synergized efforts by the policy planners and the entire work force to rid this all important department of present morass like situation is direly needed but at present it appears to be a canon firing from both ends on poor engineers who are finding themselves in this fight with no support and hand holding from the authorities.
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