Miles to go

For those keen on taking the road less travelled, the BRO is a gateway to challenging work opportunities, writes K.L. Noatay

FOR the youth who have an interest in working outdoors and a passion for adventure, the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) shows the way to interesting options.

The BRO, whose Raising Day falls on May 7, is a road-building civil engineering organisation that is similar to the Central Public Works Department or provincial PWDs in its outward structure. But its role is akin to that of the Army's Corps of Engineers. It constructs and maintains roads, bridges, airstrips and air fields. It is also assigned the task of making buildings in certain strategically sensitive areas where other construction agencies are unable to operate.

The officers and men of this organisation are partly drawn from other wings of the Armed Forces and partly commissioned exclusively for this force. The staff recruited exclusively for the BRO collectively forms the GREF. The personnel drawn from the other corps of the Army are considered on normal military duty only. The technical head of the organisation, located at New Delhi, is the Director-General, Border Roads. The administrative control is vested in the Secretary, Border Roads. The officer is generally drawn from the central services like the IAS, Central Secretariat Service etc. While for administrative control the BRO is placed under the Ministry of Highways, for strategies and technical deployment it falls under the Ministry of Defence.

Civil engineers form the bulk of the officer cadre, followed by electrical and mechanical engineers, administrators, medicos, etc. The recruitment of GREF officers is done by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) on the basis of the requirements projected by the Head of the organisation . A number of officer- level posts are filled through departmental promotions. The vacancies in officer cadres are advertised by the UPSC in leading newspapers. Most of the allopathic doctors, dental officers, signal officers, postal officers etc. are drawn from the respective corps of the Army.

The recruitment for various junior-level GREF posts is done by the Commandant, GREF Centre and Records, located at Pune, Maharashtra. These vacancies are advertised in the 'Employment News'.

In the matter of pay and allowances, the officers and personnel drawn from other corps of the Army, work on the terms and conditions applicable to their respective parents corps. The GREF officers are, however, paid in accordance with the Central Government rules and scales of pay.

All benefits of service available to Central Government employees are applicable to GREF personnel as well. These include children's education allowance, LTC, central government employees' group insurance scheme, general provident fund, house rent allowance, pension and gratuity etc. In addition, the staff deployed in difficult places of work, like remote tribal areas, is entitled to difficult locality allowance or special compensatory allowance.