The Andhra Pradesh Engineers’ Federation strongly condemned the “barbaric attitude” of Rajanagaram MLA Jakkampudi Raja, who allegedly slapped Assistant Executive Engineer Surya Kiran during a review meeting on June 1.
“We demand that the MLA be arrested for manhandling an officer while he was on government duty,” the federation said.
Federation chairman V.V. Murali Krishna Naidu and secretary general K. Sangeetha Rao said the root cause for the incident was non-payment of bills of a canal desilting work for the last two years.
The Assistant Executive Engineer has prepared the bill and uploaded on the CFMS portal two years ago. But the bill was not paid for want of release of payments by the government. Huge amounts of bills were pending in all the engineering departments for want of release of funds by Finance Department, they alleged.
If the MLA was so concerned about the payment of bills, he should pursue with the authorities in the Finance Department for payments of the bills, but should not resort to such activity. This will damage the morale of the engineers in the field who are working hard for the development of the State, they said.
“We request the Chief Minister to intervene and do justice to the affected Assistant Executive Engineer. We also request the government and all heads of engineering departments to take necessary action to avoid such incidents and provide protection to the Engineers in the field,” they added.
