Power Dept withdraws 146 posts of engineer, cancels appointments

Pradeep Sharma

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, June 16

More than two years after making a requisition for 146 junior systems rngineers (JSEs) in the Dakshin Haryana Bijli Vitran Nigam (DHBVN), the Power Department has shattered the dream of the selected candidates to land a government job by cancelling their appointment.

The Power Department has withdrawn the posts “due to non-requirement of regular JSEs”. This comes days after the Haryana Staff Selection Commission (HSSC) declared the results for filling the posts.

“The Board of Directors (BoD) considered facts of the case and decided not to allow joining of 146 JSEs in the DHBVN since there is no requirement of regular JSEs in the nigam,” states minutes of the meeting of the Board of Directors held on June 7. The decision was conveyed to the HSSC on June 14.

The decision to cancel the recruitment has come nearly two years after the selection process for the posts was set in motion on July 5, 2019. The HSSC had initiated the selection process for the government posts only after it received a written requisition from the department concerned. Subsequently, the DHBVN realised that it could “outsource the posts as per requirement against the sanctioned posts instead of direct recruitment”.

A “letter war” between the HSSC and the DHBVN ensued last year with the commission asserting that since the online exam had already been conducted, the “requisition for the posts cannot be withdrawn at this stage”.

However, the UHBVN decided to fill the posts for a “limited period” before intimating the HSSC that the IT cadre posts had been withdrawn from the purview of the HSSC.

Taking exception to the last-minute cancellation of the recruitment, Subhash Lamba, president, Sarv Karamchari Sangh, alleged that the BJP-JJP government was hell bent on snatching jobs from the youth during the pandemic. “It is gross injustice.”