Powercom staff on 3-day mass casual leave

The day to day functioning of Powercom was affected badly with employees going on mass three-day casual leave. Tuesday was the second day of the stir with the agitating employees staging a dharna in front of the circle office of Powercom in Tarn Taran.

The call for mass casual leave (CL) has been given jointly by the PSEB Employees Joint Forum, Bijli Mulazam Ekta Manch and Association of Junior Engineers. There are reports that 71 per cent of the employees have responded to mass casual leave stir. The Powercom officials had to face great harassment as they failed to redress the complaints of power disruption timely. Mohtam Singh, Deputy Chief Engineer of the local Powercom circle, said that reports of power disruption were received from Naushehra Pannuan, Chabal, Manochahal and other stations. He said that due to lack of staff, it takes time to restore power supply.

Gurpreet Singh Gandiwind and Gurbej Singh Dhillon were among those who addressed the employees who flayed the state government and the Powercom management for not implementing the accepted demands.

The employee leaders said that thousands of posts were lying vacant in the department as a result of which normal work had been affected. Due to shortage of staff in the department, the employees on duty had heavy workload, they said.

The agitating employees demanded that the vacant posts be filled up on regular basis soon. The leaders also demanded compensation for the families of employees who died while on duty.