PHE employees protest, allege CE fails to resolve their issues

PHE employees staging protest outside Chief Engg's office at BC Road in Jammu on Wednesday. -Excelsior/Rakesh
PHE employees staging protest outside Chief Engg's office at BC Road in Jammu on Wednesday. -Excelsior/Rakesh

Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Oct 6: The permanent employees of the PHE/Jal Shakti Department today held strong protest and alleged that Chief Engineer, PHE Jammu has completely failed to solve their genuine and justified issues.
A large number of employees of the department under the banner of PHE Employees United Front (Jammu Province) assembled at the BC Road office complex of Chief Engineer PHE Jammu today and started massive protest demonstration. Senior Trade Union leaders- Subhash Verma, Balbhader Sharma, Kartar Chand Dubey, Rajesh Jamwal, Ajay Sharma, Ravi Hans , Naresh Kumar and others were leading the protest.
The protesting employees were raising slogans in support of their demands. Several senior Trade Union leaders addressed the gathering and criticized the Chief Engineer PHE Jammu for not giving them time to listen to their grievances/issues. They alleged that Chief Engineer did not have time for its employees to listen and resolve their genuine and justified issues. He is involved only in his selective works with vested interests.
The issue of conducting DPC meeting was not touched during his 15 months stay here so far. Even he did not care for the directions from the Chief Secretary in this regard. No seniority lists of the permanent employees of the department are being maintained and issued. He is ignoring employees issues on one pretext or the other.
They further pointed out that not only this, the GPF withdrawal cases and the time bound promotion cases of the employees are not being settled. The salary of the PHE daily wagers/ permanent employees who have been transferred to JMC is not being settled and released. They also demanded regularization of daily wagers who have completed 7 years of service in the department.
They urged the top officers in the Jal Shakti Department to settle their pending issues as early as possible and not provoke the PHE United Front to launch indefinite agitation.