DW BUREAU / Chandigarh

The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) today asked chief minister Bhagwant Mann to stop indulging in cheap publicity stunts on the sensitive issue of Punjab's river waters and instead fill all the vacant posts of the State's quote in the Bhakra Beas Management Board (BBMB) to safeguard Punjab's interests.

In a statement here, senior leader Parambans Singh Romana said no amount of Artificial Intelligence generated reels to depict Bhagwant Mann as "Paani da Rakhra" could take away from the criminal negligence of the AAP government in failing to fill the State's quota in the BBMB. "The fact is that like the previous Congress government, the AAP government has failed in its responsibility to staff the BBMB with Punjab's engineers and staff. As many as 55 per cent of all posts designated for Punjab employees in the Irrigation wing of BBMB are lying vacant. The position in the Power wing is even worse with 73 per cent of Punjab's posts not being filled".

Asking the chief minister to tell how Punjab could safeguard it's interests in BBMB when the State was not even ready to fill up all vacant posts, Mr Parambans Romana said "the State's priority should be to fill up it's quota in the BBMB instead of indulging in a "social media" war which would not help it in any way".

Giving further details, Mr Romana said out of the total 152 class one and class two posts including that of XEN and SE in the BBMB's Irrigation wing in Punjab's quota only 68 had even filled up. He said similarly 1669 out of the 2851 quota posts of Punjab in the Irrigation wing were not filled. The SAD leader said in case of the Power wing, out of a total of 1823 posts as many as 1345 posts were not filled.

Demanding these vacant posts be filled up immediately, Mr Romana said all other partner States including Haryana and Rajasthan had filled up all posts they had received in their quota in the BBMB.

(editor@dailyworld.in)