Editor,
I wish to draw the urgent attention of the chief minister, the APPSC chairman, and the ministers and authorities of various works departments towards a serious issue affecting thousands of unemployed civil engineering graduates in the state.
It is deeply concerning that agriculture engineering graduates are being allowed to compete for and occupy assistant engineer and junior engineer (civil) posts in departments such as the Rural Works Department (RWD), Water Resources Department (WRD), and Hydropower Department. This practice is causing grave injustice to professionally trained civil engineering graduates who have spent four rigorous years studying specialised civil engineering subjects meant exclusively for infrastructure planning, design, and execution.
Civil engineering is a highly specialised professional discipline responsible for the planning, design, execution, and maintenance of roads, bridges, buildings, dams, highways, drainage systems, retaining structures, and public infrastructure. Accordingly, civil engineering students undergo intensive academic and technical training in essential subjects such as RCC design, structural analysis, steel structure design, concrete technology, highway engineering, transportation engineering, building materials, geotechnical engineering, fluid mechanics, hydrology, irrigation engineering, surveying, estimation and costing, bridge engineering, environmental engineering, and construction management.
In contrast, agriculture engineering is a different discipline primarily related to farm machinery, irrigation systems, soil conservation, agricultural processing, and allied agricultural technologies. Their curriculum does not comprehensively cover crucial civil engineering subjects such as RCC design, steel structures, bridge engineering, pavement design, concrete technology, highway materials, structural safety analysis, and advanced building construction techniques.
The matter becomes even more concerning in the APPSC AE/JE examinations. For example, Mr X, a civil engineering graduate appearing for the APPSC AE/JE examination, must study all the abovementioned core civil engineering subjects because they are part of the official civil engineering syllabus prescribed for the examination. He is required to solve complex numerical and technical problems related to RCC, structures, highways, concrete technology, estimation, steel design, transportation engineering, geotechnical engineering, and other core civil engineering topics in order to compete for the post.
However, Mr Y, an agriculture engineering graduate competing for the very same AE/JE (civil) post, is not required to study almost all of these crucial civil engineering subjects, except a few because they are not included in the agriculture engineering syllabus prescribed for the examination. Despite not studying RCC design, highway engineering, concrete technology, steel structures, pavement engineering, and many other core civil engineering subjects, he can still secure the same civil engineering post and later supervise the construction of PMGSY roads, RCC bridges, culverts, retaining walls, and public buildings.
This clearly exposes the grave injustice being faced by civil engineering aspirants. One candidate is compelled to undergo rigorous technical preparation in all core civil engineering subjects, while another candidate can obtain the same post without ever studying many of those essential subjects. Such a system defeats the very purpose of professional specialisation and undermines the value of a civil engineering degree.
A simple and logical question therefore arises: how can a person who has never properly studied RCC design or concrete technology be expected to supervise or design RCC bridges and multistorey buildings like as in case of PMGSY in RWD? How can someone unfamiliar with pavement design, bitumen technology, and highway engineering execute road construction projects under PMGSY and other major schemes? Public infrastructure directly concerns public safety, and technical competency cannot be compromised.
The issue is not against any particular discipline, but against the irrational mixing of two entirely different engineering streams for purely civil engineering posts. If agriculture engineering candidates are permitted to compete for civil engineering posts, then the examination syllabus, technical papers, and evaluation standards should at least be the same for all candidates. At present, both streams appear for different technical papers with different standards and difficulty levels while competing for the same posts under a common merit list, which creates an unfair imbalance and undermines merit-based competition.
Many aspirants have already raised concerns regarding variations in technical paper difficulty and the absence of any normalisation mechanism. Such a system unintentionally affects transparency, fairness, and equal opportunity among candidates.
Therefore, I humbly request the Government of Arunachal Pradesh, the APPSC, and the departments concerned to immediately review the recruitment rules for AE/JE (civil) posts under RWD, WRD, and Hydropower Department and reserve these posts exclusively for candidates possessing a formal degree in civil engineering.
Departments responsible for constructing roads, bridges, public buildings, dams, and vital infrastructure should be manned by professionally trained civil engineers in the interest of engineering standards, infrastructure quality, accountability, and public safety.
It is sincerely hoped that the authorities concerned will intervene at the earliest and deliver justice to thousands of deserving and unemployed civil engineering graduates of the state.
A concerned civil engineer