The cadre engineers of Odisha Power Transmission Corporation Limited (OPTCL) are holding a silent protest from 5.30 pm to 6.30 pm every day before the corporation’s headquarters from Wednesday.
The Odisha Power Transmission Engineers' Association in a protest letter to the Managing Director said the engineers of OPTCL are deeply aggrieved over the manner in which zones are reorganised and postings are made without taking in to consideration the ground realities, pros and cons and without any consultation neither with the highest rank cadre officers (CGM) nor with the association.
Even without the detailed structure of the Zonal head offices, the date of functioning has been decided as January 1, 2021.
The funniest aspect is all zonal heads are required to report both Director (Projects) and Director (Operation) for their respective work. While the board decision to allow HRA and MA to its executive was kept pending for more than three years, the above decision was forced on employees of OPTCL in a haste though there are a lot of contradictions w.r.t manning inconveniences, the association said.
The fate of the present Zonal heads (Senior GMs) are also not decided. The CGMs (EICs) from corporate office are hurriedly posted and thus it has been made CGM less, though CGMs are corporate office posts. In this process both the Sr GM and CGM posts have been devalued, all in the name of better coordination with district administration and discoms as if Senior GMs (Chief Engineers) are not capable to do so.
In this process, making corporate office CGM less and making them non-participants in the decision making process is not in the interest of the organisation. Everywhere, be it corporate or Government the highest posts of a cadre always remain in the head office for obvious reasons.
When the association met the Managing Director on December 27 and appraised him about their point of view, he did not pay any heed to their words and rather told that he will go ahead with the decision, which is detrimental to the engineering cadre as well as against the interest of the organisation. So they are left with no other option but to protest this decision. There are also a series of other issues which still stand unresolved, said association president Pradeep Kumar Dash.
The association demanded the management for a holistica review and deliberation on OPTCL manpower requirement, reorganisation of posts, positions and cadre restructuring in line with Energy Department, Till it is done, the office order No.20522 and 20518 should be kept in abeyance, to immediately implementation of HRA and MA w.e.f dt.01.04.2018 along with arrears as applicable to non-executives, ‘Engineer’ designation for engineers instead of ‘Manager’ and a group term insurance plan for all OPTCL employees to secure their family in case of any eventuality or death, demanded association general secretary Pravat Kumar Dash.
