NIPEF demands pay parity for Haryana power engineers with their counterparts

Vinod Kumar Gupta
Thursday, 14 October 2010
CHANDIGARH: Northern India Power Engineers Federation(NIPEF) demands that the pay scales of Assistant engineers in power utilities be amended by keeping the previous pay differential with state government engineers and bringing Haryana power engineers at par with their counterparts in U.P, Punjab & Delhi.
It may be mentioned that Power Utility Assistant Engineers in Haryana are the lowest paid amongst power utilities of the country. They were getting higher pay scales than the state services Engineers in 5th Pay Commission. But this aspect has been completely ignored in deciding the pay scales of assistant engineers who has been given lower pay band and given scale of 9300-34500 with initial salary of 12090 .Even state government assistant engineers are better placed.

In Punjab Powercom an assistant engineer gets a initial starting pay of 16680 with grade pay of 5900.In UP the starting pay of AE in power utility is 17740 with grade pay of 5400and whereas in Delhi the initial pay is 19000 with grade pay of 5400. In Haryana power utilities the AE has been put in pay band 2 whereas in Uttar Pradesh the time bound feature in pay scales has been retained and as a result over 90% engineers are in pay band 4.

HS Bedi Chairman NIPEF said that by reducing the pay scales of assistant engineers in the power utility they are lowering the morale of engineers. The effects of such treatment would lead to deteriorating public service conditions as Assistant engineers is the lowest rank engineer dealing directly with consumers.

NIPEF also condemns the proposal of handing over the power distribution of Gurgaon and Panipat to private franchisee. There is no reason to privatize the power distribution of Gurgaon and Panipat cities as these are the cities where revenue collection is 100 percent and line losses are in the range of 20 to22percent.The revenue realization of 167 crore from Gurgaon is highest in all the cities of Haryana.

The handing over the power distribution system to private franchisee amounts to back door privatization which would give huge profits to the private parties at the cost of public sector distribution companies, which were already under acute financial distress. The sell out of high revenue earning areas would drive the public sector distribution companies into accelerated bankruptcy and directly affect not only the finances but also power supply to the rural areas and agriculture.