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Journalism of Courage
SHIMLA, July 13: The Himachal Pradesh State Electricity Board (HPSEB) engineers and staff have demanded signing of a supplementary agreement with Nathpa-Jhakri Hydro-Electric Project Corporation (NJPC) to “protect” their interests and designate their role in operation and maintenance works after completion of the Nathpa-Jhakri project.
In a joint memorandum submitted to Union Energy Minister P. R. Kumaramangalam yesterday, two separate bodies of power and project engineers, and employee unions accused NJPC of not being able to provide service benefits and other incentives as compared to their counterparts of NJPC.
The engineers and HPSEB staff have also demanded setting up of a monitoring cell to evaluate the progress of the project.
Three union leaders, Chander Singh Mandyal, head of HPSEB Employees Union, K. K. Vaidya, president, HPSEB Project Engineers, and Suneel Grover, general secretary, HPSEB Joint Forum of Power and Project Engineers, said that they were satisfied with their talks with Kumaramangalam, who had advised chairmen of HPSEB and NJPC to sort out the issue within a fortnight.
Stressing the need for a supplementary agreement, the employee unions alleged that the NJPC had violated earlier agreement on facilities, service benefits and other benefits given to seconded staff. “The new agreement is required to clear all ambiguities in the future and settlement of pending issues,” they said.
Major demands raised in the memorandum included filling-up of vacant posts of executives and non-executives, grant of incentives in lieu of seconded executives and non-executives and stopping of further incremental recruitments arbitrarily by the NJPC.
