Tripura assembly adjourned over job issue

Agartala, Sep 11 (UNI) Opposition Congress MLAs in Tripura today created pandemonium over casual engineers' engagement in the state PWD department, forcing the Speaker to adjourn the House.

The MLAs alleged that following an instruction of PWD Minister Badal Chowdhury, executive engineers at division level offices, invited expression of interest in the respective notice boards for casual appointment of Degree and Diploma holder engineers at Rs 250 and Rs 200 per day basis.

Opposition leader Ratan Lal Nath raised the issue after question hour and alleged that more than 300 people got appointment in the arrangement without proper advertisement following 'some deal' with the minister through concerned officials.

Reacting to the allegation, Mr Chowdhury said the department had been facing a crisis of engineers, as Tripura Public Service Commission (TPSC) refused to finalise the selection procedure soon and as a result, the department had delegated the power to the executive engineers to engage locally some engineers as per their requirement for the interim period.

A number of development projects were currently in implementation stage and if the government made wide publicity for the engagement for a few months, the process would take more time and involve huge manpower and money, Mr Chowdhury said.

But the Opposition was not satisfied with his reply and demanded withdrawal of the notification and initiation of fresh move which he refused.

Finally, Chief Minister Manik Sarkar assured the House that the matter would be reconsidered keeping the urgency of the matter in mind. But the Opposition members kept shouting forcing Speaker Ramendra Debnath to adjourn the House for 15 minutes.

The stalemate continued even when the House reassembled, as the entire Opposition raised slogans against the government. Suddenly, Congress MLA Sudip Roy Barman rushed towards the podium and threw the file from the secretary's table while other members threw waste paper at the Speaker. Finally he had to adjourn the House till 1400 hours.

UNI