The Tamil Nadu Electricity Board Engineers’ Sangam members held protests throughout the State on Wednesday urging the Board to implement their long-pending demands.
Leading the demonstration of hundreds of engineers in front of TNEB headquarters here, the Sangam general secretary V. Ashokkumar said the Board had not granted promotions to junior engineer (grade I) even though they had put in 19 years of service whereas assistant engineers got promotion after 14 years.
Chief Secretary K. Gnanadesikan, when he was TNEB CMD, made promises but nothing had been done, he said.
The Sangam with about 6,000 engineers also demanded that technical assistantsbe given the same salary as those in other departments.
“Compared to departments like PWD, the salary at the entry level post is only 50 per cent,” he said, adding that the Sangam was demanding the implementation of about eight demands agreed by the TNEB after agitations for about seven years. “It has been three years since the Board agreed but nothing has been implemented,” he charged.
The Sangam’s members, most of them in the distribution circles, have planned to protest in front of the TNEB headquarters on March 17 and undertake an indefinite fast from April 7 if their demands were not met.
Promotions for JEs was one of the demands of the protesting engineers
