HYDERABAD: In a move that would benefit as many as 1,233 Irrigation department engineers, both working and retired, the State government on Tuesday brought the curtains down on a three-decade old issue by deciding to give ad hoc promotions to them.Till, now Irrigation department engineers, engineers-in-chief, were working with the tag ‘in-charge’ and getting the salary of DEs. With the ad hoc promotions, the engineers would get pay scales as per their existing posts.
Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao approved the recommendations of a committee headed by Special Chief Secretary (Irrigation) Rajat Kumar and decided to give ad hoc promotions.Due to disputes over seniority among the engineers of different batches since 1975 and also due to court cases, the irrigation engineers did not get promotions. “I am getting DE salary now, though I am working as engineer-in-chief. I will now get ENC salary,” an official told Express.
However, these ad hoc promotions were subject to the final outcome of court cases. The State government will now finalise the seniority and give promotions. The additional financial burden on the State exchequer would be around `20 crore per year. Besides, the State government also decided to create 12 supernumerary posts in the department.
According to sources, six supernumerary posts in the cadre of CE to 647 batch engineers, two supernumerary posts in the cadre of CE and four supernumerary posts in the cadre of SE to avoid reversions for the Engineers presently working on in-charge arrangements.Telangana Irrigation Graduate Engineers Association president Nalla Venkateswarlu and executive president N Sridhar thanked Rajat Kumar and Chief Minister’s OSD (Irrigation) Sridhar Rao Deshpande for resolving the long pending problem.