PSEB Engineers' Association, in a rushed meeting called on Monday, decided to launch “protest action“ against the failure of the state government and the Powercom management to honour its commitment on service conditions and benefits.

Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal had given the assurances ahead of restructuring of the power board.

“During meetings with the CM and other officials, the engineers and employees were assured that their service conditions and pension benefits would be protected in the newly created corporations under a tripartite agreement between the state government, companies and employees as was done in other states,“ said association president H.S. Bedi.

Three month down, the matter has not been taken up.

Almost all the states, before issuing notification for unbundling of their State Electricity Boards, had signed agreements with employees and engineers, but the Punjab Government has been sitting on the draft agreements submitted by various unions and associations of PSEB, said association members.

The tripartite agreement is of paramount importance to the engineers and employees given that both the state government and the PSEB's successor companies are not in very sound financial health. PSEB had utilised more the than Rs 1,800 crore from employee provident fund to run its affairs and the state government had neither created any statutory fund/Trust to safeguard employee interests nor did it extend any solemn guarantee for payment of retirement benefits or provident fund withdrawal, said members.

The CM had also assured then that all pending issues regarding pay revision would be sorted within a month and even constituted a committee, they further said.

Yet another assurance claimed that the existing differential in pay scales of PESB engineers vis-à-vis their counterparts in Punjab Government would be maintained. However, pay scales of engineers of the new companies have not been decided.