Reorganisation of Engineering wings

Were Engineering wings of various departments of the Government living up to their expected performance and utility and whether any policy or arrangement existed to assess the same at periodic levels? Primarily, the idea dates back to a pragmatic thinking that with such wings set up in departments, their requirements in respect of various works would be met from within in respect of expert wing provided to deal with such issues to save time and formalities of official protocols. However, the actual results over a period, provedotherwise necessitating a holistic view being taken in order to effect basic structural changes in these engineering wings. In this connection, as a result of responding to the situation, a decision has been taken by the Government which sanctioned the merger and subsuming of in -house engineering wings in various departments and organisations like Tourism, Education – Higher and Technical , Agriculture Production , Transport, R&B and other departments. In other words, nearly over a dozen of engineeringwings in various departments, therefore, stand abolished.This was all with a view to effect a structural change hence in the overall performance levels including special areas of better quality, faster execution of works and lower costs and cost controls in construction projects.
Since in the absence of a comprehensive policy on the subject which is expected to take care of by a newly constituted committee , for future guidelines, there were issues faced by various in -house Engineering wings like shifting of focus of departments from their core objective to activities like construction , too many wings of engineering sprouting, no uniformity in the process of estimates and projections of projects, dormant SOPs, poor implementation and the like, the review has been made. Now the staff from these departments can be shifted to those departments where their performance can be projected and be visible like in the PWD , Jal Shakti , PDD as the case may be. This , however, does not preclude the user departments whose engineering departments have been subsumed from retaining the discretion of sorting out which of the works were falling in priority and identifying such works , of course, with administrative approvals.
Since these structural changes are effective from December 1, this year , the formalities and the modalities of merger, repatriation to parent departments, deputation of the concerned staff from the subsumed wings of the PWD, Jal Shakti and PDD shall be done following the recommendations submitted and the lay out plan chalked out by a committee which has been constituted by the Administrative Council and comprising Administrative Secretaries and the concerned domain experts . It remains to be seen whether the committee adheres to the timeline of Sept 15 this year in submitting its recommendations to be acted upon after due approval. Roads and Buildings department of the UT being in need of its structuring has been felt since long and accordingly, the Administrative Council has decided to constitute a committee to suggest as to how the sensitive and important department of R&B could be restructured with additional units, wings , verticals etc to cater to the need of their regional units and specialised wings.
SIDCO and SICOP with a mandated role to promote and encourage small scale industrial units and to provide infrastructural facilities and their development , have specialised engineering wings too which needed to be clearly delineated to enable them to restrict their functions and activities to their mandate. Since Human Resources Management in the UT of the Engineering wings is not supported by a comprehensive cogent policy which is reviewed from time to time , ad-hoc(ism) prevails which cuts at efficiency and quality . Promotions, seniorities , recruitment rules, transfers and career progression are all in less organised form rather in a mess . We appreciate that a committee is constituted to look into these issues and asked to submit its report as also give recommendations. We reiterate that merely by constituting committees, one after the other, nothing except ”buying time ” to resolve issues takes place , what is needed is hammering and grilling a weak system run by lethargic personnel and take fast and fearless decisions.

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