Review cases of officials penalized under political pressure
V K Gupta

Haryana power engineers have demanded timely filling of posts of Directors and review of suspensions done under political pressure.
HARYANA POWER Engineers Association has demanded the review of all cases where officials have been penalized for taking action against defaulters under political pressure.
The management of Discoms UHBVN and DHBVN has directed their staff to recover the defaulting amount of the utility from defaulters. The accumulated losses and other liabilities of Discoms have crossed 22000 crore.

Daljit Singh, General Secretary of association said that whenever the supply of the defaulter is cut and if the defaulter happens to be a highly connected politician, the raiding staff along with concerned officers is either transferred or suspended in public interest allegedly for insulting the public representative.

The latest case pertains to the suspension of an executive engineer at Kurukshetra. In this case concerned Executive Engineer is responsible for bringing down the commercial losses from more than 20 per cent to 9.33 per cent with 100 per cent collection efficiency. In this case executive engineer ordered the disconnection of domestic meter of a consumer who happened to be an ex-MLA and whose defaulting amount had reached more than Rs. 80,000. The politician made it a prestige point and got the Executive Engineer suspended.

R S Dahiya President of Association further said that Government is not filling the posts of Directors of utilities in a time bound manner. One post of Director in DHBVN is lying vacant since June 3 and another three posts of Directors are also going to be vacated on September 30. Sometimes posts are not filled immediately to adjust a favourite facing various charges and is allowed time to get drop charges against him.

Dahiya said that efficient officers behind a tainted official will retire as Chief Engineer which is a cause of heart burning to sincere power engineers. The Association urges the state Government that tenure of Directors should be up to superannuation level only and Engineer in Chief post in Utilities should be revived as prevalent in other engineering departments.