THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: It seems to be an agonising wait for the Class III/IV employees of the Kerala Water Authority (KWA) as the implementation of the KWA (Technical Service) Rules which ought to have given them better posts in the KWA is getting inordinately delayed. A meeting presided over by Water Resources Minister P J Joseph, who also heads the Assembly Subject Committee, was held on August 4 to discuss the draft of the Technical Rules. However, following protests raised by MLAs of the ruling party, it was referred for detailed discussions. The meeting to this effect was held on August 11 and it was attended by representatives of all service organisations. “The next meeting of the Assembly Subject Committee ought to have taken place on August 24. However, this did not take place, since the particular file was not returned to the Water Resources Department due to many uncertainties pertaining to the Rules,” a source said.One point of debate in the Technical Rules is the decision to cut at least 1300 permanent posts in various technical categories. This had invited protests from the ruling party MLAs in the Assembly Subject Committee meeting. “On the one hand, they are planning to cut down 1300 posts. On the other, much efforts are being made to create three new Chief Engineer posts,” a source said. Among the 1300 posts are the 842 posts in the lascar and workers categories. At the meeting held on August 11, the trade union representatives had questioned the logic in removing these workers who clean the water treatment plants. “We feel this move is part of replacing the permanent employees with daily wage labourers,” a trade union representative said. For want of Technical Rules, promotion possibilities are denied to employees in categories like plumber, fitter, overseer, lab assistant, operator and others who have the basic qualification ie., ITI and additional qualifications such as diploma or BTech. It was after much struggle on the part of various trade unions that discussions for implementing the Technical Rules took place in December 2007 and January 2008. After much deliberations, the drafts of the Technical Rules and that of the Administrative Rules were submitted to the PSC. But though the Administrative Rules was approved by the PSC and passed in the final Assembly session of the previous government, the PSC sat on the Technical Rules for a longer period. The appraisal of the same was completed only in May 2011. There is yet another point of contention in the draft of the Rules, which might dash the promotion hopes of those in higher posts. “As per the Rule, if an employee has to be promoted as an Executive Engineer, MTech or MBA is the minimum qualification. But not many have this qualification. So there is every possibility that the implementation is deliberately being delayed,” an employee pointed out.
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