Srinagar: The casual laborers of R&B department have accused the Executive Engineer Right River Circular Road Division Nayeem Ahmad Khan of nepotism in their regularisation process .

A group of the employees told The Kashmir Press that the said engineer is deliberately dilly-dallying the process of their files that will enable them to get permanent employment in the department; and favors the candidates of his choice.

The Government of Jammu and Kashmir on December 22 2017 notified (SRO-520) the “regular engagement” of casual, seasonal and other workers. According to it, the appointees shall be paid a monthly remuneration after their regularisation based on their years of engagement.

Under the policy, the casual, seasonal and other workers are entitled to a monthly remuneration ranging from Rs 10,000 to Rs 24,000, provided their period of engagement is above 10 years and posses minimum educational qualification of 8th standard or above.

While many departments have already engaged all such employees including approximately 1100 by the PDD, the executive engineer of R&D RR Division is accused of favoritism in the process.

Sources in the R&B department said that Khan had sent 14 files for approval to Superintending Engineer of the department last week.

However, they said that the files did not contain the master sheet including the attendance, CVCT and wage certificates of the employees.

“The SE office sent the files back to the Executive Engineer who is also the Drawing and disbursing officer of the department,” the sources said.

While Khan claims that the files of the casual laborers is missing in the department, he said that he has resolved the issue with the SE.

“There is some issue with their Date of Birth. It is a clerical error in Aadhar feed with NIC. We have got it corrected and I have discussed the issue with the SE and taken a decision that their authentic DOB’s will be used for their orders.”

However, he said that the records of the employees have been missing for a long time and it is not that it has happened during his tenure.

“These are 10 years old records. We do not have any such records available with us,” he said, however, assured that it will not become an issue n their regularization.

The casual laborers, however, said that the records have been concealed by the establishment cleric of the Executive Engineer’s office.

“The labourers had long back reported an issue of ‘highhandedness’ of the cleric to the higher ups,” they said, “The cleric had retorted to the employees that he will not let them get engaged in the department permanently,” a group of the casual laborers said.

Meanwhile, the Superintending Engineer office Wednesday denied that the issue has been resolved as claimed by the Executive Engineer.

“No, we have not received any further communication on the issue. The last time we sent the files back to the Executive engineer, since then we have not any information on the issue,” a senior official said.

He said that the important files pertaining to the casual laborers who are supposed to get engaged permanently were missing. “There was no attendance record and wage certificate. How do we know for how long has a particular employee been associated with us.”

On the other hand Khan claimed that he has already resolved the issue and the missing of documents of the employees will not affect their regularization process.