Ujjian: The diploma engineers here submitted a memorandum addressed to principal secretary panchayat and rural development- to the joint commissioner CL Dodiyar.
They threatened that if their 3-point demands are not met they will launch an agitation.
MP Diploma Engineer Association’s Ujjain president RK Choubey and provincial secretary Seva Manoj Sharma said that their three-point demands are: action should be taken against the culprits after conducting a judicial inquiry into the reasons behind the suicide of Praveen Panwar and an ex-gratia of 50 lakhs should be given to the dependents of the deceased. Their second demand is that the General Administration Department has sought a detailed summary from the Rural Development Department to regularize the sub-engineers working on contract; the department has failed to share the information despite passage of a year. The regularisation of 500 contract sub-instruments is in limbo. They demanded that the brief should be made available to the General Administration Department immediately.
Their third demand is the MGNREGA scheme of the Government of India is a demand based scheme and there is a provision to provide 100 days of employment in a year. However, the officials have made it target based and are pressurising them with strict monitoring to increase the labour days.
Deputy engineers, secretaries of gram panchayat and village employment assistants are working under extreme stress. They are facing harassment and their lives are getting ruined. The stress is such that they many are mulling to take extreme steps like suicide.
The implementation of this scheme should be done in such a way that the field staff should work without stress and should not be subjected to undue pressure. They said that they are afraid that their colleagues may die of suicide, heart attack.
If the demands are not resolved, then MP Diploma Engineers Association will be bound to launch an agitation, they said. MP Rajendra Singh Bhadauria, provincial president of Diploma Engineers Association Bhopal, senior deputy provincial president Suresh Dwivedi have written to Umakant Umrao, principal secretary, panchayat and rural development department, to support the movement led by the United Front of 17 organisations of Panchayat and Rural Development employees.
