Odisha: Engineers of Water Resources resent delay in promotion

BHUBANESWAR: Deputy executive engineers (DEEs) waiting to be elevated to the post of executive engineers have expressed grave resentment against the delay in granting promotion for the calendar year 2020.Even as 24 posts of executive engineer are lying vacant in the Water Resources (WR) department and 25 engineers have been cleared by the departmental promotion committee (DPC), they have not been given promotion under the plea of cadre restructuring.

The undue delay in giving promotion to DEEs has blocked the promotional prospects of assistant executive engineers (AEEs). At present, 45 posts of DEE are lying vacant.“There is absolutely no connection between promotion and restructuring of engineering cadre. As cadre restructuring is a time taking process, we failed to understand why the promotion files have been held up by the authority,” said a member of the Odisha Engineers Service Association (OESA).

As per the instruction of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik in December 2019, the DPC should meet and finalise the list of officials to be promoted before January of a new calendar year. This would enable the department concerned to provide timely promotion to all eligible government employees.In deviation of the government instruction, the DPC was conducted in October 2020, after a delay of eight months. Of the 59 DEEs cleared for promotion, 34 of them have been given promotion. The other 24 vacant posts were supposed to be filled up by December 31, 2020.

Drawing the attention of the Principal Secretary of the department, OESA has requested for filling up all promotional posts including three posts each at the level of Superintending Engineer and Chief Engineer. 
The association has further requested to conduct the DPC by end of this month for filling up the posts that will fall vacant during 2021 and stop the practice of engaging retired engineers.