A huge uproar was witnessed in the Himachal Pradesh State Legislative Assembly on Friday on the outsourced employees recruited in the Jal Shakti Department during the previous BJP government.

Deputy Chief Minister Mukesh Agnihotri, in response to a question about outsourced employees in the Jal Shakti Department, said that the previous BJP government during its tenure did politics in the Jal Shakti Department.

Agnihotri said most of the recruitment in Jal Shakti Department was done from Seraj and Dharampur Assembly Constituency (AC) alone and an estimated 950 recruitments were done from Dharampur, 450 people were recruited from Seraj.

 “The executive engineer of the department floated a tender from Sarkaghat, for recruitments at the state level, whereas this tender should have been from the state headquarters level,” he said, adding that this was done so that the favorites could be recruited.

Agnihotri said that the incumbent government has not fired any of the outsourced employees in the department, only those employees whose contract has expired have left the department.

He said that the government is going to fill 5000 vacancies in Jal Shakti Department and full transparency will be ensured in these recruitments.

Earlier, in reply to the original question of MLAs Prakash Rana, Randhir Sharma and Vipin Singh Parmar, Mukesh Agnihotri said that it is a policy matter of the government to make policy for the outsource employees hired in Jal Shakti department.

He said that a total of 247 employees, including 130 pump operators, 32 para fitters and 85 watchmen, are employed in the Jal Shakti Department in the state on outsourcing.

In response to a question asked by BJP member, Hans Raj about the Bhanodi to Pangi-Killar ropeway, Mukesh Agnihotri said that a DPR of  Rs 1,618 crore for the ropeway project has been sent to the central government.

A sum of Rs 3.40 crore had been spent on preparing the DPR of the project, he added.

The government will also try to get funding from NABARD for Chintpurni and Baba Balaknath ropeway, he said, adding that big projects like ropeways in the state can be completed with the help of the central government and foreign funding.