103 23rd EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE Item No. 27: Strengthening of Organisational Structure of Construction Wing of the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation. I~ ij. the j,..i..'-" A..J~""'V~"'" CVOI'"t;\",. '"' Corm... 11 11 ittec \.,,""'" 1.11",,",'" mcctinz JiS v~ ~C..,.J. '210-1)< 1./ V, Jl :. was a desiredu thata l. proposal 1 be put Up for strengthening of organisational structure of the Construction Wing of E.P.F..; Organisation.c.Employees' Provident Fund Organisation has constructed office building for. Regional Offices/Sub-Regional offices at 1. Hyderabad 16. Cuddapah 2. Patna 17. Vishakhapatnam 3. Ahmedabad 18. Cochin 4. Faridabad 19. Nagpur 5. Bangalore 20. Amritsar 6. Trivandrum 21. Coimbatore 7. Indore 22. Madurai 8. Mumbai 23. Trichy 9. Bhuwaneswar 24. Varanasi 10. Chandigarh 25. Jalpaiguri 1l. Jaipur 26. Siliguri 12. Chennai 27. Kota 13. Kanpur 28. Agartala 14. Calcutta 29. Aurangabad 15. Delhi 30. Kolhapur (Head Office) 31. Shimla 32. Calicut Staff quarters have also been constructed for the staff at the Regional Offices at: 1. New Delhi 8. Chandigarh 2. Hyderabad 9. Faridabad 3. Bangalore 10. Jaipur 4. Trivandrum 11. Chennai 5. Indore 12. Kanpur 6. Mumbai 13. Calcutta 7. Bhubaneshwar (Sub-Regional offices) 14. Vishakhapatnam 19. Dehradun 15. Amritsar 20. Bareilly 16. Madurai 21. Kota 17. Varanasi 22. Calicut 18. Agartala 23. Cuddapah \
H>4 Besides this, construction activities are in progress or likely to be started soon for office building/staff quarters at the following places.- i) Office Building under construction: i.;j;' 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Additional O.B. at Bhubaneshwar Additional O.B. at Mumbai Jabalpur Nasik Nizambad Office building at planning stage: 1. Warrangal 3. Baroda 5. Surat 7. Mangalore 9. Udaipur 11. Gorakhpur 13. Rourkela 15. Karnal 2. Ahmedabad Training Institute 4. Rajkot 6. Gulbarga 8. Goa 10. Agra 12. Meerut 14. Hubli 16. Ludhiana ii) Staff quarters under construction: 1. Additional Staff quarters at Chennai 2. Additional Staff quarters at Vishakhapatnam 3. Rourkela 4. Jabalpur 5. Nasik 6. Hubli 7. Coimbatore 8. Jalpaiguri Staff Quarters at planning stage: l. Nizamabad 8. Nagpur 2. Rajkot 9.. Ludhiana 3. Ahmedabad 10. Udaipur 4. Gulbarga l. Gorakhpur 5. Mangalore 12. Meerut 6. Cochin 13. Karnal 7. Goa / At present the construction work is being got executed through CPWO, State PWD and Public Sector Undertakings under Government of India like national Building Construction Corporation (NBCC) and Hindustan Prefab Limited (HPL) on deposit terms basis. At some places, the Housing Board Development Authorities has also been given the work of construction of OfficeIResidence buildings. At some places, E.P.F. is purchasing t e "
105 ready built houses constructed by the Housing Boards/Development Authorities, for example, purchase of staff quarters done recently at Dehradun, Chandigarh and Bareilly. The Organisation has a mixed experience with these Agencies as some of the Schemes are delayed resulting in time over run and cost escalation. Similarly, the position of. maintenance of building is considerably behind schedule and time norms. The executing agencies do not take timely action and are not interested in scattered works. The condition of maintenance is reported to be bad in nearly all the regions. Most of-the-time, the occupants of the building are dis-satisfied with the maintenance and the service. In view of the past experience and increase in the workload, it will be in the best interest of the Organisation that E.P.F_ should have a fairly proper level of Engineering Establishment to monitor, look after the interests of E.P.F. and get expedited the early completion of the various projects which in turn will result into saving in cost escalation as well as convenience to the occupants, both in staff quarters and in office.building'-organisations like All India Radio and P&T are reported to have established their own engineeringset ups. It is, therefore, proposed that the E.P.F. Organisation should also have its own engineering cell as per details given below. The 16 Regions of the E.P.F. Organisation are divided in four zones each containing about four regions. Following structure is being proposed: Existing Structure Proposed Head Office Construction Engineer of the rank of Superintending Engineer Chief Engineer Executive Engineer (Civil) Two Junior Engineers Executive Engineer (Electrical & Mechanical) Two Assistant Engineer (Electrical & Mechanical) 4 Junior Engineer (Civil) Zonal Office 2 Junior Engineer (Electrical & Mechanical) 0iil I Executive Engineer (Civil) - I Assistant Engineer I Assistant Engineer (Electrical) (Civil)
W6 Regional Office Nil 1 Junior Engineer (Electrical) I Junior Engineer (Civil) It is proposed to have one Chief Engineer in Central Office and 4 Executive Engineers (Civil), one for.each of the zones. The Executive Engineers will be attached with the office of the Addl. CPFC of the zone. The set up of the offices of the Chief Engineer and the Executive Engineer in zones will be discussed in the subsequent paras. Mainly two types of works are required to be executed by Construction Cell. These are maintenance and construction. The working of the Engineering Cell is proposed to be as under:- I. MAINTENANCE: Wherever office building and staff quarters are available with the RO, one Junior Engineer (Civil) will be posted for looking after the maintenance of the assets of the Department. As the workload of electrical works is lesser than the civil works, it is proposed that one Junior Engineer (Electrical) may be posted for each region. Junior Engineers under supervision of Regional Commissioner will be responsible for day-to-day maintenance of the assets of the Organisation. For this, necessary material will be procured from the market, material, "At Site" account will be maintained, Carpenter, plumber, masons etc. will be engaged on day-to-day basis as per requirement... For the annual maintenance/special repair items, the required estimates will be prepared and these will be sanctioned at the Zonal Office level. The process for Administrative Approval and Expenditure Sanction will be delegated at Zonal and Regional level as per financial powers available under general provision of E.P.F. Organisation on the subject. If. CONSTRUCTION: For the construction activities there are various stages which are discussed as below- (a) Whenever a proposal is made tor purchase of land for any RO/SRO, the land proposed to be purchased will be inspected by the concerned officers at Regional Office. (b) It is proposed that instead of engaging Architects and Structural Engineers on the role of the E.r.F. Organisation. the Consultants will be engaged for preparation of drawings, estimates. structural drawings and tender documents. This will save lot of manpower and would expedite the works at all stages.
" I I 107 Cc) Detailed estimates for execution of work and the tender documents would be prepared. These estimates will be technically sanctioned by the various level. officers as per norms of c.p. W.O. The tender documents would be prepared on the standard C.P.W.D. forms. (d) (e) The lenders will be called with the publicity and the press advertisements. negotiations, if any, required to be done about the rates quoted by the tenderers will be done by a Committee of Addl. CPfC, Executive Engineer and Regional P.F. Commissioner (1) of the concerned region.. (f) After finalising the proposal, the same could be sent to the Chief Enginee in the Central Office for getting approval of competent authority depending upon \ the delegation of administrative and financial powers.. The set up of various offices of Junior Assistant En!:jneer; Executive Engineer etc would be as under.- JlJNIOR ENGINEER With each Junior (Civil), one clerk will be attached. They will be responsible for procurement of material, maintenance of store, issue of material, preparation of estimates for "the maintenance work. ASSISTANT ENGINEER Each Assistant Engineer will be assisted by -one Junior Engineer and one Typing Clerk. the office.of the Assistant Engineer will-be responsible for checking the bills, making justification for tenders and maintain correspondence with-the Contractor/Consultant and also... prepare the extra and substitute items. EX CUTIVKENGINEER The office. of the Executive Engineer in each Zonal Office will have one Assistant Engineer (Electrical), one Assistant Engineers (Civil), one Head Clerk, one P.A., one U.D.e.. two L.n.cs. CHIEF ENGINEER The Chief Engineer in the Central Office would be required -to process all the cases depending- upon delegation of powers received from 16"regions. He will be assisted in the Central Office by one Executive Engineer (Civil), 2 Assistant Engineers (Civil), 4 Junior Engineers (Civil), one Executive Engineer (Electrical), one Assistant Engineer (Electrical), two Junior Engineer, one Superintendent, one P:A., one Steno to Executive Engineer, two UDCs and 4 LDCs. " - ~--,,'
108. RECRUITMENT It is proposed. that all the engineering 'Staff.shall be taken on deputation from' C.P.W.D:, P&T.andM.E.S. and other Central/State Government Engineering Department as - 'follows> CHIEF ENGINEER ~'",c, Chief Engineer will be given the scale of Rs. 4500-150..;5100. The officers working-in the grade of Superintending Engineer in -C:P.W.D. or equivalent will. be eligible for deputation -to this post. EXECUTIVE ENGINEERS..~.;:;:. The Executive Engineers will -be -taken. in the grade of Rs. 3000-4500. Senior.Assistant Engineer and the Executive Engineer of various Central Government/State Goverruhents Engineering Departments will be eligible for this post..assist ANT ENGINEERS 1./ Assistant Engine.ers will-be taken in-the grade of Rs. 220Q-40eO- and Senior Junior Engineers.and the Assistant Engineers of various Central/State Government Engineering Departments will be eligible for this post, JUNIOR ENGINEERS They will be taken in the grade.of Rs. 1640-2900 from various CentraliStatc Government Engineering Departments with minimum of 7 years service. Ail the technical staff taken on deputation will be entitled for deputation allowa le and t.p.f. Organisation wiii have to deposit towards Pension Contribution and Leave Salary Contribution to their parent department. It is observed that the actual amount spent year-wise on the maintenance and etty works during the last three financial years is as under;- Year Amount 1991-92 Rs. 49,00,2001-1992-93 Rs. 63,88,900/- 1993-94 Rs. hq _.,--,_._- ~') n()()/- 199~-95 Rs. 1,13,00,0001-1995-96 Rs. 1,39,51,300/- I The maintenance work is likelv to increase in the cominu years as the buildings' aye.".... -' '-' not been maintained properly during the last many years and also a number of assets acquired during the last years have increased tremendously. There are Tubewells, Generators, Lifts
lo9 and many such assets/properties at various offices location of E.P.F. Organisation. It is anticipated that in future our actual maintenance budget will be in the tune of 1.25,00,0001-. If this work is got done from C.P.W.D.the Agency charges/departmental charges would be around Rs. 25 lakhs.,. As far as the Construction activities are concerned, the expenditure during the last three years is as under:- Year Amount 1991-92 Rs. 240.291akhs 1992-93 Rs. 402.41 lakhs 1993-94 Rs. 989.621akhs 1994-95 Rs. 1,095.61 lakhs ~ 1995-96 Rs. 1,085.89 lakhs.~'f This expenditure per year is likely to increase further as land has been purchased at number of places in the recent past and construction activities are likely to increase. It is assessed that annual expenditure would be in the range of Rs. 15 to 16 crores. The departmental charges of works of this amount would be around 1.50 crores. Thus E.P.F. Organisation would save around Rs, 1.75 crores which would be required to be paid as departmental charges to various Construction Agencies and this amount would be utilised towards expenditure on the pays and allowances of the officers of Engineering Cell. } The working procedures, delegation and decentralisation of administrative financial powers will be done on the same lines as per norms of C.P.\V.D. for both Civil, Electrical & Mechanical. The above proposals were examined by internal finance of E.P.F. Organisation. Finance while concurring with the above proposal made the following observations:- (i) CBT had earlier taken a decision th2t all the construction work should be executed through CPWD and later on liberalised in respect of calling the construction work to other agencies apart from CPWD by including agencies like NBCC, HPL etc. (ii) If the Organisation is to take up the construction work directly, all the work relating to drawings/preparation of estimates/tendering/awarding work/execution at various levels, close. supervision to ensure execution as per specification and setting bills will have to be the responsibility of the Organisation. For this work accordingly lot 01 other supporting hands at lower level apart from engineers would be required. The requirement of the additional manpower need be assessed. (iii) For vetting the contract documents and also to tackle the arbitration and other litigations the level machinery within the Organisation will need further strengthening. Such requirement need be assessed.
III I.1I i Compared to the giganatic requirements the present level of technical staff is only as follows: Construction Engineer Junior Engineer 1 3 Vacant at present In view of the above, it is stated, the proposal may be approved. E:\23rdec\CWING.sarn
110 (iii) For vetting the contract documents and also to tackle the arbitration and other litigations the level machinery within the Organisation will need further strengthening. Such requirement need be assessed. (iv) While awarding contract at our end will bring the Organisation within purview. of many labour and other laws like; Workmen Compensation Act, Maternity Benefit Laws, ESI building Construction Workers' Conditions of' Services Welfare Act etc. (v) Organisational requirement is not strictly comparable to All India Radio and Posts and Telegraph Departments. (vi) The Ministry of Finance, Department of Expenditure in its Circular No. 5(3 )/RJIU9-7-dated 7.2.1997 had instructed that until such time the Central Government takes a decision in respect of the recommendations of the Fifth Pay Commission, no post can be created or any cadre be restructured etc. At present we are having the following Construction activities: Office Building Staff quarters Under Construction 7 9 Under Planning 14 13 Further the Organisation has embarked on an ambitious plan of providing suitable physical infrastructure in the form of building and staff quarters. In view of growing need and the fact that any delay in construction ultimately lead to cost escalation, it is felt that suitable thrust to be given to this area. This can be feasible only when a fully staffed Construction Wing attends to the issues and ensure prompt processing and finalisation of the cases in a concerted manner.
III Compared to the giganatic requirements the present level of technical staff is only as follows: Construction Engineer Junior Engineer I 3 Vacant at present In view of the above, it is stated, the proposal may be approved. E:\23rdec\CWING.sam