Date:27/10/2006 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2006/10/27/stories/2006102720520300.htm

New Delhi

"Allow us to work from residential areas"

Staff Reporter

`Engineering should be included in the new Master Plan'

`No commercial charges should be levied for carrying out engineering activities'

`Only four categories of professionals had been allowed under the Master Plan'

NEW DELHI: The Engineering Council of India (ECI), the apex organisation of engineers with 24 main representative professional organisations, has demanded relief for engineers by including them as professionals in the permitted category in the Master Plan for Delhi-2021, presently under consideration.

Council Chairman Udesh Kohli said necessary amendments should also be made to the Notification of September 7, 2006, and the engineering profession should be included in the relevant clauses to mention them as professionals in the Notification.

Moreover, he said, engineering should be specifically included in the Master Plan for Delhi-2021 for the purpose of allowing professional activities from residential premises.

Finally, Dr. Kohli said, in view of clear-cut difference between professional and commercial activity, no commercial charges should be levied for carrying out professional engineering activities from residential premises.

Stating that like other professions engineers do not have the benefit of an Act of Parliament, the Council has argued that it has been continuously striving to get the Engineering Bill enacted. The draft of the Bill has been prepared with extensive consultations.

It has been submitted to the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development with a copy to the Union Ministry of Urban Development in September 2004.

However, the move is yet to provide a legislative cover to engineers. Once the Bill is enacted, the engineering profession would be legally recognised and the anomalies mentioned above would not arise, the Council said.

It lamented that only four categories of professionals -- architects, chartered accountants, doctors and lawyers -- had been allowed professional activity under the current Master Plan for Delhi 2001 for the purpose of carrying out their profession from the premises where they reside.

Stating that in the earlier Master Plan of 1962, there was no distinction made for professional activities and engineering was covered, the Council said the Tejendra Khanna Committee report, which formed the basis of the Notification, also did not restrict itself to just four professions, but had mentioned these and IT professions as an illustration.

As such, the Council said, its demand for inclusion of engineers in this category is well justified.