Services of LBOD’s 2,601 contingent staffers regularised

Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah has regularised the services of 2,601 contingent employees of the Left Bank Outfall Drain (LBOD).

It may be recalled here that the administrative control of the Nawabshah unit of the LBOD Stage-I project was transferred from the Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda) to the provincial government’s irrigation department in the beginning of 1999, while those of the Sanghar and Mirpurkhas units were handed over by the end of that year, along with all their assets.

The administrative control of the Spinal Drain, the Kadhan Pateji Outfall Drain and the Tidal Link, along with the Workshop at Baloch Band, was also transferred from Wapda to the managing director of the Sindh Irrigation & Drainage Authority (Sida), Hyderabad.

In this way, the employees who reported to the director of the Salinity Control and Reclamation Project, North Rohri, Nawabshah were 697 in number, while those who reported to the MD of Sida, Hyderabad were 1,904, so the total number of contingent or work-charged employees comes to 2,601.

Their sanctioned new establishment positions were created in 2016-17 on the instructions of CM Murad, and now he has approved a summary to regularise their services. In order to provide legal cover to the regularisation of 2,601 employees of the LBOD, the chief executive has directed the irrigation secretary to draft an act to be presented before the provincial cabinet and then before the legislature.