Lack of IPH staff hits water schemes

Rajesh Sharma

Una, May 22

Vacant posts of pump operators, fitters and beldars (daily wagers) in the Irrigation and Public Health (IPH) Department in Una district have adversely affected the working of the department. While these employees are forced to operate more than one drinking water schemes simultaneously, a majority of the irrigation schemes remain non-functional due to staff shortage.

Deep bore tubewell schemes, installed by the IPH Department, are the main source of drinking water and irrigation in the district. However, with the rising demand and the number of drinking water and irrigation schemes, posts of scheme operator have not been increased in the last many decades.

Farmers of Kotla Khurd village said there had been no pump operator at the scheme inaugurated by the then IPH Minister in June 2012 and since then the scheme stood abandoned. Consequently, the entire 31 hectares was still dependent on rainfall, adding that they were unable to cultivate during summer season as against their Punjab counterparts.

Vipan Rana, president of the district unit of the Himachal Pradesh Non-Gazetted Officers’ (NGO) Federation, said there was a requirement of 979 pump operators, but posts sanctioned were 480, out of which 149 posts were vacant.

Rana said as against the requirement of 196 pumping machinery fitters, there were only 82 sanctioned posts, out of which 60 were vacant. He said for day-to-day maintenance of all the schemes, including the elaborate piped network, 1,169 beldars were required, but there were only 666 sanctioned posts, out of which 72 were vacant.

Ramesh Thakur, district general secretary of the federation, said the government had declared their cadres as ‘dying cadres’, which meant there was no new recruitment after the retirement of these field workers.

Thakur said due to staff shortage, the pump operators were forced to operate more than one drinking water schemes simultaneously, for which they are not paid any travelling allowance. The schemes, he said, may be located 4 to 5 km away, adding to their daily stress. He said even the weekly day-off was being denied to staff.

Federation representatives said they had apprised IPH Superintending Engineer NK Trivedi and Deputy Commissioner Yunus Khan of their grievances, clearly stating that if the working conditions did not improve, they would stop doing additional duties.

Adding to the woes of the scheme workers, as many as 122 cases of power cable theft from the schemes were reported in the district in the past year since 191 posts of night watchman were also lying vacant. While drinking water is a priority sector, staff shortage has badly hit the irrigation schemes as most of them are non-operational for want of staff.

NK Trivedi said at present there were about 722 lift water schemes in the district, out of which 192 were being used for supplying drinking water, while the remaining 520 for irrigation purposes. He said since the recruitment of employees was a government matter, he was not in a position to comment on that.