Bhubaneswar: Cutting across party lines, members in Assembly Tuesday expressed their concern over the decision of the 8,500 diploma engineers to go on mass leave from September 18.
Raising the issue during question hour, Mahesh Sahu (BJD) said the diploma engineers working in various departments like Works, Rural Development, Housing & Urban Development, Panchayati Raj and Water Resources had given a notice 15 days back about their decision go on mass leave from September 18 demanding regularisation of their services.
Though the state Cabinet had taken a decision six months back to regularise their services but it has not yet been implemented, he said.
Sahu said implementation of various developmental works and schemes announced by the government would not be possible if the diploma engineers went on leave.
The BJD legislator urged the Speaker to direct the concerned ministers to make a statement in the House and resolve the issue at the earliest in the greater interest of the state. He was supported by Tara Prasad Bahinipati (Congress), Pradip Purohit (BJP) Jeevan Pradip Das, Sameer Ranjan Dash and Ramesh Chandra Chaupatnaik (all BJD). All of them wanted the Speaker to intervene and give a ruling to implement the Cabinet decision at the earliest.
In his remark, Purohit said, “State Cabinet is the highest authority of the government. Who is stopping it from executing its decision?”
BJP legislature party leader KV Singh Deo said, “Cabinet decisions should not be kept in abeyance. They should be implemented immediately. Non-implementation of the Cabinet decisions has proved that bureaucrats are more powerful and are running the government and the Cabinet is just a dummy in their hands.”The matter came to rest after the Speaker in his ruling asked the government to take note of it.
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