SRINAGAR: On Wednesday, the government decided to postpone the restructuring of the Public Works (R&B) Department until further notice. The restructuring included reorganization of the cadre and rationalization of the jurisdiction of its subordinate and field offices to align with the territorial boundaries of the Jammu and Kashmir divisions, districts, and blocks.
The government order states, ‘The restructuring of the Public Works (R&B) Department by way of re-organisation of cadre and rationalization of jurisdiction(s) ordered in terms in Government Order No. 22-JK (GAD) of 2023 dated 06.01.2023 is hereby deferred till further orders.’
As per the January 6 order, the Development Commissioner Works (Ex-officio Secretary Tech. R&B Department) was re-designated as Engineer-in-Chief (Secretary Technical R&B Department). Similarly, the Mechanical Engineering Department Jammu and Kashmir was renamed as Mechanical and Hospital Directorate J/K.
Also, one post each of Chief Engineer in the Mechanical Wing and Chief Engineer of the Mughal Road Project were transferred to the Civil Wing. The government ordered the conversion of three posts of Chief Engineers, one each from SKUAST-Kashmir, SKUAST-Jammu, and SKIMS Soura, from deputation posts to duty posts by abolishing these posts from the concerned subsumed/merged engineering wings of departments.
Mechanical Engineers were posted in the Civil Wing of R&B, except in the Jammu zone, for the purpose of snow clearance and other works, as follows: Each Chief Engineer (Civil) R&B (Zonal Office) was to have one Executive Engineer (Mechanical); Each Superintending Engineer (Civil) R&B (Circle Office) was to have one AEE (Mechanical); Each Executive Engineer (Civil) R&B (Division Office) was to have one AE (Mechanical) in their offices, and each Assistant Executive Engineer (Civil) R&B (Sub Division Office) was to have one JE (Mechanical) in their offices.
The government also ordered the conversion of eight (08) deputation posts of Superintending Engineers (Civil) to duty posts by abolishing these posts from the concerned subsumed department(s) for their adjustment in new territorial jurisdictions identified for these Superintending Engineers (Civil).
It ordered the conversion of deputation posts of Superintending Engineer (Meeh) (01), Executive Engineer (Meeh) (05), Assistant Executive Engineer (Meeh) (04), Assistant Engineer (Mech) (04), and Junior Engineer (Meeh) (14) from subsumed departments into duty posts by abolishing such posts from the concerned subsumed/merged engineering wings of departments.
The government also ordered the conversion of deputation posts of Executive Engineers (Civil) (36), Assistant Executive Engineers (56), Assistant Engineers (19), Junior Engineer (82), and Draftsman (Civil) (48) into duty posts by abolishing these posts from the concerned subsumed/merged engineering wings of departments.
It also ordered the formulation of new cadre strength as per the revised structure for inclusion in the respective Schedule-II of Gazetted/Non-Gazetted Engineering Recruitment Rules by issuance of corresponding notifications, thereby revising SRO-661 (Gazetted) and SRO-654 (Non-Gazetted) dated 25.10.2019, respectively.
