Over 12,000 Discos contract employees: PD moves summary to cabinet for regularisation of jobs

Power Division has moved a summary to the federal cabinet for regularization of over 12,000 contract employees of Distribution Companies (Discos), financial implication of which has been calculated at approximately about Rs 2 billion per annum, sources close to Minister for Power, Omar Ayub Khan told Business Recorder.
Discos were placed on privatisation list in 2014. Since then no regular recruitment has been made in these Discos. However, with the expansion in the distribution network/consumer base and retirement of employees, ample shortage of staff in Discos developed overtime. Resultantly, the impact can be seen in customer services and response time.
The erstwhile Ministry of Water and Power approached Privatisation Commission for permission for recruitment in these Discos, on which the Commission on September 16,2015 allowed fresh hiring subject to the following conditions: (i) only critically required officers/staff, as determined by the then Ministry of Water and Power on the basis of technical requirements may be hired against sanctioned posts; (ii) hiring should be for posts covered in accordance with the last tariff petition submitted/going to be submitted to Nepra by the entity; and (iii) hiring may only be made on contract basis with a maximum duration of one year.
The Discos accordingly proceeded with hiring in 2015-16 against the sanctioned posts in compliance with the guideline of Privatisation Commission and those employees are still working on contract. As per prevailing service rules in Discos, the services of employees recruited in grade 1 to 16 were required to be declared regular after two years' service and services of employees in grade 17 and above after 1 year service based upon performance.
There is settlement between Labour Union (CBA) and the management of Pepco, according to which regularization of contract employees has been agreed to and according to section 49 of Industrial Relations Act 2012, the implementation of the settlement between CBA and management is legally binding. The Labour Union has given notices to Pepco and is agitating for regularization of the HR hired in 2015-16 after completing the minimum required length of service of contract, ie, 2 years.
According to the Power Division, operation and maintenance system of Discos are still manual and cannot be kept operational without availability of trained manpower. This coupled with extreme weather conditions makes the availability of trained manpower inevitable just to keep the system operational round the clock.
Presently, there are total of 15,261 contract employees ranging from grade 1 to 18 and above 12,011 employees have experience of more than two years.
Power Ministry says that these contract employees form backbone of the distribution system providing service to the general public. These contract employees after putting in more than two years of service now have a legitimate reasonable expectation for further vertical career progression. Financial implication involved in regularization of these 12,011 employees amounts to approximately Rs 1.947 billion per annum.
The Disco-wise strength of contract employees is as follows ;(i) Fesco- 2,763;(ii) Gepco- 1,166;(iii) Hesco- 193;(iv) Iesco-138;(v) Lesco- 4,648;(vi) Mepco- 1,911;(vii) Pesco- 855;(viii) Qesco 173;(ix) Sepco-145 and ;(x) Tesco -19.
The regularization process is a continuous process as the employees who complete the requisite formalities can be considered piecemeal. In addition to requirements of service rules, the following parameters will also be taken into account of regularization: (i) integrity; (ii) discipline; (iii) immediate response to public complaints for redressal; and the most important (iv) whether the concerned employee has been successful in elimination of theft or electricity and corruption in his areas of jurisdiction.
Privatisation Division, in its comments on Power Division's summary has stated that the CCoP on October 31, 2018 approved a new privatisation programme, wherein power companies (Discos and Gencos) are not included in the active list of privatisation program. Besides, federal government on October 6, 2018 constituted a task force on energy reforms. One of Terms of Reference (ToRs) of task force is to develop future strategy for the government owned SoEs (Discos and Gencos) operating in the power sector vis-à-vis privatisation, provincialization or otherwise, and propose it to the federal cabinet for consideration.
The Establishment Division, in its comments on the summary stated that the legal framework for appointment and its procedure has been laid down in the Civil Servants Act, 1973 and Rules made thereunder according to which the appointments are required to be made in the prescribed manner by the designating appointing authority.
The Establishment Division further argues that there is no provision either in the Civil Servants Act, 1973 or in the Civil Servants ( Appointment, Promotion, Transfer) Rules, 1973 or in any other rule under which Establishment Division can approve appointment/ induction of contract/daily wage/contingent paid employees or regular basis.
Management Services Wing, in its Office Memorandum (OM) of May 11, 2017 has issued policy guidelines for appointment of contract/contingent/daily wage/project employees on regular basis.