Power Engineers oppose non-departmental duties, to switch off mobiles in protest
Ludhiana, May 27, 2020: Various district administration have been assigning non-departmental duties like checking of alcohol smuggling, procurement of wheat in mandis, general administrative tasks like issuing curfew passes, shift duties for monitoring quarantine centres etc to PSPCL/PSTCL engineers and technical staff. Earlier, in anticipation of the coming summer and paddy season and due to intervention of office of Principal secretary/ Power and PSPCL management, such duties of Engineering officers and technical staff of PSPCL/PSTCL who are taking care of the “Essential Service” of providing 24x7 power supply to the public and healthcare facilities of the state at this critical juncture, were taken back allowing the engineers to resume work to ensure reliable supply.
The District Administration Ludhiana ignoring the critical status of supply in a highly populated and critical city like Ludhiana, has deputed majority of Engineers on other non departmental duties, the duties for which staff from other departments could have been easily managed by the local administration. It seems the district administration is not interested in ensuring reliable supply to the consumers and health care facilities.
There is huge resentment in PSPCL engineers against such move of the district administration Ludhiana. President of the association Er Jasvir Singh Dhiman informed that under such conditions, it has become very difficult to perform duties by the engineers and the technical staff.
Er. Dhiman informed that to protest the arrogant attitude of District Administration, Engineers in Ludhiana Zone will switch off their mobile phones from 5PM to 9AM daily, from Wednesday 27-05-2020 onwards, the same will be extended to whole Punjab from Monday 01-06-2020 onwards and district administrations and management will be solely responsible for any adverse effect on power supply in the State.