Historical reforms in J

Srinagar, June 26 (UNI) Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad had recently observed that a number of posts were vacant in engineering departments due to technical reasons as the engineers took a long time in getting promoted, an official spokesman said today.

In various cases, he said it was found that Chief Engineers were holding the posts while their substantive posts were held by executive engineers or assistant executive engineers.

The spokesman said ad-hoc arrangement is prevailing in the entire engineering system. As a result of this, the work which was required to be executed within one month was taking years together to complete, he added.

In certain cases, the spokesman said engineers were not available for making drawings, concepts and the plans while the supervisory role was lacking.

The Chief Minister held a series of review meetings and found that majority of posts were vacant and the promotion and recruitment policy was mainly responsible for keeping vital posts in engineering departments vacant, he added.

The Cabinet, therefore, took ''revolutionary'' steps by amending the promotion and recruitment rules, the spokesman said, adding as per new rules, even a junior engineer who completes only three years of service will be entitled for promotion.

Recognising the need for rectifying the existing systematic difficulties in making substantive appointments against vacancies at different levels, he said the state Cabinet approved the revised eligibility criteria to replace the existing sysytem in the Engineering Gazetted Services Recruitment Rules which have been coming in the way of timely filling up of vacancies at different levels on substantive basis.

The spokesman said for promotion as Chief Engineer, at least 20 years of total gazetted service would be required with at least one year of working experience as Superintending Engineer.

For promotion as Superintending Engineer, at least 17 years of total gazetted service would be required with at least two years of working experience as Executive Engineer, he added.

The spokesman said for promotion as Executive Engineer, at least 15 years of total gazetted service would be required with at least 4 years of working experience as Assistant Executive Engineer.

For promotion as Assistant Executive Engineer, at least 10 years of total gazetted service would be required with at least 4 years of working experience as Assistant Engineer, he added.

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