Diploma engineers to start agitation soon in Orissa

Bhubaneswar, Feb 3 (UNI) The diploma engineers in Orissa today threatened to go on strike if their six-point charter of demands were not conceded soon.

Orissa Diploma Engineer Service Association president Nirmal Chandra Swain and general secretary Narendra Kumar Nayak told newspersons here today that they would stage demonstration at district level from February 14 and hold a two-day long mass convention in Bhubaneswar on February 19 and 20 in protest against the alleged apathetic attitude of the bureaucrats in fulfilling their demands.

The demands include promotion of junior engineers after completion of 15 years of service, implementation of pay scale at per central government employees, formation of cadre of junior engineers posted in the Panchayat Raj Department under different schemes. Besides, extension of regular service benefits to junior engineers posted under contractual basis, posting of IAS officers as secretary in works department were also among other demands.

The association leaders said if the government did not fulfil their demands, the engineers would go on a mass leave for 33 days beginning from March 1 next.

Even though a committee comprising of secretaries of nine departments constituted at the direction of the Chief Minister to solve the problem had made some recommendations in June last but it had not yet been implemented so far due to negligence of some officers, they alleged.

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