Record revenue collection by lowest paid assistant engineers in Haryana’s power utility

Chandigarh: Assistant Engineers in Haryana’s’ power utilities are the lowest paid throughout the country but they have achieved record monthly revenue collection of 400 crore for the utility, said RS Dahiya President of Haryana Power Engineers Association. The Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam crossed the record monthly collection of Rs 400 crore in revenue collection an increase of 30 percent over corresponding period of last year.

The Gurgaon Operation Circle takes the lead in highest revenue collection of Rs 167 crore amongst all circles of power utility. Under such remarkable achievements made by engineers the pay scales of assistant engineers are lowest in country and Government plan to handover Gurgaon and Panipat circles to private franchisee.

R S Dahiya said in a press statement that the pay scales of Assistant engineers in power utilities are lowest amongst all the power utilities of the country. It may be mentioned that Power Utility Engineers 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 with grade pay of 5400. .Even state government assistant engineers are better placed. In Punjab Powercom 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. Dahiya said that Haryana is adding 5000 MW of power in next two years yet the Government is not doing anything for the lowest paid assistant engineers. By keeping the pay scales of assistant engineers in the power utility at the lowest Government is lowering the morals of engineers who are instrumental for the betterment of power utilities.

The effects of such treatment would lead to deteriorating public service conditions as Assistant engineers is the lowest rank engineer directly dealing consumers. Further Haryana Power Engineers are of strong view that under such conditions that there is no reason to privatize the power distribution of Gurgaon and Panipat cities as these are the cities where revenue collection is 100 % and line losses are in the range of 20 to22%. 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. Gurgaon and Panipat city areas are likely to be handed over to an industrial house early next year.