Fayaz Bukhari
SRINAGAR, Aug 7: Chief Engineer Public Health Engineer (PHE) today resigned after he was allegedly abused by Minister for Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution (CAPD) Chowdhary Muhammad Ramzan during a meeting at Civil Secretariat.
The Minister, however, denied the allegations and said that he asked the Chief Engineer about the fate of investigation into the embezzlements in Rs 5.84 crore Water Supply Scheme in his Constituency.
The Chief Engineer PHE, Ahmad Muzaffar Lankar said that the Minister used aggressive language against his engineers and abused him during the review meeting today right from the beginning of the meeting in presence of PHE Minister Sham Lal Sharma. “The language used by Chowdhary Ramzan was not tolerable and I left the meeting half way”, he said.
Lankar said that he immediately sent his resignation to the Commissioner Secretary PHE. He in his resignation letter said that he was abused by the Minister in a meeting today in presence of PHE Minister Sham Lal Sharma.
“In view of grave provocative language used by CAPD Minister during the meeting, I submit my resignation from the post of Chief Engineer and you are requested to make alternative arrangement for running the department,” Lankar said in the resignation letter.
The Chief Engineer headed for his office from Civil Secretariat and left for his home at Lal Bazar after tendering his resignation.
Large number of employees of the department gathered at the PHE headquarters at Rajbagh soon after news spread and protested against the Minister for allegedly abusing the Chief Engineer. They called for three day strike and suspended the tanker water service immediately in protest.
The various employee unions of the PHE called for three day strike and work in the PHE offices remained suspended today. They demanded that the Minister should be dropped from the cabinet and also threatened to cut the water supply to Kashmir valley in next phase of protest.
However, the CAPD Minister Chowdhary Ramzan stongly denied allegations and said he only sought answer about embezzlements in Rs 5.84 crore Water Supply Scheme at Ramhal Block of Handwara in Kupwara district.
The Minister denied abusing him. “We had a review meeting of PHE in which Minister for PHE, lawmakers, engineers and even Sarpanchs were also present.
When I asked him about the embezzlement in the scheme and fate of the inquiry that was ordered last year, he stood up and said that he is a man of integrity and left from the meeting hall halfway”, he said.
The Minister said that he didn’t abuse him but sought answers about failure of the Scheme. “I have always respected him and the officers during my 30 year career and officers have also respected me. I can’t even think of misbehaving with any officer,” he added.
The Minister said three years ago work on Rs 5.84 crore Water Supply Scheme for Ramhal was started. “However, the project never got completed due to embezzlement of funds by concerned engineers and contractors”, he said.
Ramzan said last year during the review meeting on July 28, he had told Minister for PHE that there is embezzlement of Rs 50 lakh who ordered an inquiry but no probe was conducted so far.
The Minister said in today’s review meeting, the PHE officials said that they have spent Rs 5.50 crore and completed the scheme but I questioned them by saying there is no water or water pipes in the Ramhal block.
Ramzan said that in the past when embezzlement surfaced, an Executive Engineer was transferred to Anantnag. “Two months ago, on June 28, 2014, I wrote a DO letter to the Minister about the embezzlement and had mentioned that there is a nexus between engineers and contractors. I sought an enquiry into the embezzlement and demanded punishment under law.”
The Minister termed the strike by the PHE employees as anarchy.
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