The Joint Electricity Regulatory Commission (JERC) has directed the UT Powerman Union to submit their rejoinder on the reply filed by UT Electricity Department within 15 days in a review petition filed regarding the manpower requirement in UT Electricity Department.
The UT Powerman Union of Chandigarh had filed the petition for review of the JERC order, dated June 24, passed by the Commission regarding manpower requirement in UT Electricity Department. The commission had admitted the petition on August 19.
In its orders, issued on Tuesday, the commission stated that it examined the petition and found in line with the JERC (Conduct of Business) Regulations, 2009 and Electricity Act, 2003.
The hearing of the matter was held on September 15 and the UT Powerman Union Chandigarh had requested for 15 days time for filing rejoinder to the reply of the UT Electricity Department (respondent) stating that the respondent has taken objections beyond pleadings.
The commission considered the request of the petitioner, acceded the same and directed it to file rejoinder of the reply of the respondent within 15 days, stated the orders
The next hearing on the issue will be held on October 14. Notably, the Chandigarh Electricity Department (CED) is at present reeling under severe staff crunch and the JERC had in June approved the report on proposed manpower requirement in the Department.
The JERC had also directed the UT Electricity Department to fill the existing vacancies in the Department.
The Chandigarh Electricity Department’s existing structure and setup has remained unchanged since its inception (1967) and the last sanction for officer level manpower was provided in the year 1992.
A study conducted on the directions of JERC on manpower requirement in UT Electricity Department had pointed out that the CED has 961 employees against the total sanctioned strength of 1668.
The study submitted to the JERC by CED had proposed creation of 1394 new posts that is required for CED as per phase I in immediate term. In group A posts in CED, creation of post of one chief engineer, 3 superintending engineers, 10 executive engineers among others were proposed. And, creation of 184 posts of junior engineers in group B and 1,151 posts in group C were proposed in the study.