Patiala, May 21, 2020: Junior Engineers, Assistant Engineers and Sub Divisional Engineers of P.W.D. (B&R) staged a dharna and protested against the anti-employee attitude of the Joint Controller (Finance) and also handed over memorandum to Chief Engineer Mr. Virander Singh Dhindsa.
Talking to the media persons the engineers said that teh Hon'ble Punjab & Haryana High Court has granted them one extra increment after competition of 14 years of Service. They said that almost all the other departments have grante the benefit given by the Hon'ble Court but the Joint Controller Finance Mr. Surinder Kumar Sondhi was creating the hurdles for implementation of the High Court Order. The engineers met the Principal Secretary Sh. Vikas Partap Singh and he immediately called a meeting and ordered the Chief Engineer to implement the court order in toto and grant the increment to the engineers. The chief engineer on 17/04/2020 ordered that the benifit is given to the engineers and he directed all the Superintending Engineers to implement the orders immidiately. The Joint Controller working under the Chief Engineer tried to sabotag these orders and finallybeyond his competancy wrote to the Superintending Engineers not to implement the orders of his boss i.e. Chief Engineer. This created very strange situation in the department as a much junior officer has challanged the orders of his superiors. To set aside these impunged orders the engineers today made protest against the Joint Controller of the department and also asked Chief Engineer Mr. Varinder Jit Singh Dhindsa to nullyfy the impunged orders and take strict action as per norms against the said officer.
Acting upon the demand of engineers Chief Engineer immidiately issued a warnig letter to all officers in head office not to issue letters at their own to the field staff in future failing which a strict action would be taken. He also assured to the engineers that he has recomended a strict action as per Service rules against the said officer. Present among others were Er Baljeet Singh, Er Bhupinder Singh Gill, Er Satnam Singh, Er P D Rana, Er Jaswant Singh Grewal