By Anup Biswas

Haflong : The Public Health Engineering Division, Umrangso, one among the three division in Dima Hasao has been suffering huge hardship due to shortage of staffs alleged the Executive Engineer, Manuj Das.

Das claiming to be from Minister Ranjit Dass’s constituency who joined Umrangso Division in 2020 said he, being an Executive Engineer has been working in many positions in absence of several staffs. He, being an executive engineer travels in public bus such his attachment towards the works.

Meanwhile Das has written to the Additional Chief Secretary, PHED, Govt of Assam, Dispur, Guwahati vide letter no EE/PHE/URSO/TB-JJM-01/2021-22/1483 dated 15.09.2021 regarding the staff position. He mentioned that one post of assistant executive engineer PHE Umrangso Sub- Division was lying vacant against one sanctioned post, one post of assistant executive engineer PHE TC Umrangso Division was lying vacant against one sanctioned post, four posts of Assistant Engineer were vacant against six sanctioned post, as many as nine posts of junior engineers were lying vacant against 12 sanctioned posts, one post of Account Officer, one post of Deputy Accounts Officer and one post of Assistant Accounts Officer were lying vacant against one each.

In his letter Das said council has appointed ant Deputy Accounts Officer from Maibang Irrigation Department as Accounts Officer in this Division but he requires fulltime Accounts Officer due to work load of JJM and travelling inconvenience.

In spite of all odds, he claimed to be one of the most successful engineers amongst all the three divisions of PHED in regards to the implementation of the PHED schemes under the Umrangso Division.

The people of Umrangso are of the opinion that the present Executive Engineer Manuj Das was seen to be active but at the same time ‘we cannot ignore the activities of Das’s predecessor, Executive Engineer Nripendra Sarma who actually did a lot to give a live to the Umrangso PHED which was in shambles during those days’.