Engineers can now pick department of their choice and stay put there

Policy put in place in PWD, Water Resources, RD&PR for better acquaintance

Winds of change are sweeping across the corridors of power in ensuring State’s technical manpower expertise are energised to give their best, rather than be enmeshed in the byzantine rituals of inter-departmental transfers, saddled with responsibilities not specific to their calling.

As part of this policy initiative, it is learnt that, as many as 12,000 engineers, working in three major departments and their attached corporations can henceforth opt for the department of their choice. This is being currently put in place in the Public Works, Water Resources, Rural Development and Panchayat Raj departments, and their related corporations.

Once engineers, attached to these departments, specify their preference, they will be permanently based in the chosen department (among the three) and not subjected to further transfers.

Regular training prog

The engineers, on their part, will be put through their paces, with regular training programmes, to develop necessary expertise in their chosen field, according to official sources.

Presently, public works department recruits engineers and deputes them in-house to water resources and rural development and panchayat raj departments.

PWD also vests the power of transferring engineers among these three departments.
Officials said this led to engineers, say, in PWD, working on road projects, suddenly finding themselves in RDPR department, allotted the task of working on drinking water projects.

This evidently led to delays in project execution as transferred engineers, took time to acquaint themselves with their new tasks. The “bifurcation process” as the current proposal is being christened, will lead to dedicated team of engineers in the three departments, officials said.

Focus on technical needs

The engineers, thereon, will exclusively focus on technical requirements of their respective departments.

Officials said RDPR department has already started consultation process with its engineers, while water resources department has sought opinion from its 4,000 engineers setting the coming January 25 as deadline and PWD is expected to start the process soon.

In case, there is an overload of preference to any one department, seniority will be utilised to make the selections. Once the process is completed, PWD, water resources and RDPR will take up new recruitments separately.

Water resources department alone has around 1,500 vacancies for technical staff. Both RDPR and Water Resources department have completed the process of finalising new Cadre and Recruitment (C&R) rules, officials added.