L. MOHAPATRA, J. ( 1 ) E petitioners in this writ application have prayed for regularisation of their services from the date of their initial appointment. ( 2 ) CASE of the petitioners is that they were engaged as N. M. R. employees under the control of opposite party No. 1 since their date of appointment i. e. June 1, 1989. They have been continuing as such till date and they have not been regularised in service. During their employment they were being paid Rs. 25. 00 per day and subsequently same has been enhanced to Rs. 950. 00 per month and they are made to work at different Action Research Stations of the opposite party-Institute on transfer. While the petitioners were continuing as such, they represented to the opposite party No. 1 through opposite party No. 2 for regularisation of their services. Representations were forwarded by the opposite party No. 2 with recommendation for regularisation to opposite party No. 1, but the said representations have not been considered as yet. It appears that the representations were filed in 1994 and 1995 by the petitioners. It is alleged in the writ application that pending consideration of the representations of the petitioners, Sankarasan jena and Govinda Chandra Sahoo were regularised even if they were engaged as n. M. R. much after the petitioners and had been placed below the petitioners in the seniority list of N. M. Rs. prepared by the opposite parties. In the list of N. M. Rs. the petitioners 1 and 2 have been placed at serials 41 and 42 respectively, whereas Sri Jena and sahu have been placed at serials 59 and 66. It is also alleged in the writ application that some of the N. M. Rs. employees who have not completed 5 years of service also were sought to be disengaged and this Court directed their regularisation and some of them have already been regularised. The petitioners who appeared in person submit that they have crossed the upper age limit for any other job and it is not possible for them to maintain family with a meagre consolidated pay of Rs. 950. 00 per month. It Is submitted by them that they have been working under the opposite party No. 1 since 1989 and they should be regularised in service, moreso when juniors to them have already been regularised. 950. 00 per month. It Is submitted by them that they have been working under the opposite party No. 1 since 1989 and they should be regularised in service, moreso when juniors to them have already been regularised. ( 3 ) COUNTER has been filed by the opposite parties 1 and 2. It is stated in the counter that the petitioner No. 1 was appointed as Irrigator on March 29, 1994 and was posted at Bhadrak action Research Centre and has been working as Irrigator since then at different places. It is also stated in the counter that the petitioner No. 2 is also working as Irrigator. There are 14 numbers of Irrigators working at WALMI out of which 13 numbers are working at different stations spread all over the State. ( 4 ) SRI Aditya Kumar Patra, Deputy director, Water and Land Management institute who was present in Court and argued the case, submitted that initially the petitioners were appointed as N. M. Rs. but on their request they were absorbed as Irrigators and as such their names were deleted from the list of n. M. Rs. He further submitted that the irrigators are being paid consolidated pay of rs. 9507- per month at present. It is stated by him that since the petitioners names were deleted from the N. M. Rs. list they cannot have grievance stating that their juniors were appointed on regular basis. However, Sri Patra submitted that these 14 posts of Irrigators were created, but no scale of pay has been prescribed for the said posts. On being questioned by the court he submitted that the scale of pay of irrigators has not been fixed in view of the pendency of the writ application. In the written note of submission submitted by him it is stated that initially WALMI was being funded by U. S aid upto March, 1989 and from April, 1989 to september, 1992 funds were made available to walmi through Water Resources management and Training (WRM and T) which is an external funding scheme. The main objective of WRM and T is action research and adoptive research, for which almost all the action Research Stations of WALMI along with its staffing pattern were created during the period of above funding, i. e. from April, 1989 to September, 1992. The main objective of WRM and T is action research and adoptive research, for which almost all the action Research Stations of WALMI along with its staffing pattern were created during the period of above funding, i. e. from April, 1989 to September, 1992. After the said funding was stopped, no external scheme is available to walmi and number of posts were created for the different Action Research Stations, with the hope that WRM and T will continue funding walmi which is fully depending now upon the grant released by the State Government. It is also stated in the written note that against the budget requirement of Rs. 2,48,85,000. 00 the state Government has only granted Rupees one crore which is wholly insufficient to meet the salary component of the existing staff. ( 5 ) THE petitioners who appeared in person dispute the fact that they have been appointed to work as Irrigators. On the other hand, their contention is that they were forced to work as irrigators and their names were deleted from the list of N. M. Rs. Their sole grievance is that they have not been regularised in service and are being paid consolidated pay for last several years. There is no dispute that the petitioners have been working as Irrigators for quite some time and total length of service on casual basis rendered by the petitioners is more than 10 years. Therefore, the opposite parties cannot say that there is no requirement for absorption of the petitioners on regular basis against the said posts. Non-regularisation of the petitioners in the said posts even though work is available for continuance of the posts amounts to exploitation. ( 6 ) CONSIDERING the submission of Sri Patra on behalf of opposite parties that the scale of pay shall be fixed for the Irrigators in the next meeting of the Governing Body of WALMI, I direct that in the next meeting of the Governing body which may be held within three months from the date of communication of this order, the scale of pay of the petitioners be fixed and they may be paid salary as regular employees of WALMI. Since juniors were regularised earlier than the petitioners it is desirable that the petitioners should also be paid arrears from the date their juniors were regularised, namely goyind Chandra Sahoo and Sankarsan Jena. Since juniors were regularised earlier than the petitioners it is desirable that the petitioners should also be paid arrears from the date their juniors were regularised, namely goyind Chandra Sahoo and Sankarsan Jena. Shri Patra submitted that it may not be possible on the part of the WALMI to pay the arrears if a stipulated time is granted, as it depends on grant of State Government. Therefore, I do not fix any time limit for payment of arrears, but direct that the arrear dues should be paid preferably within a period of one year and accordingly budget provision should be made. ( 7 ) SINCE there is no dispute that 14 posts of Irrigators are existing for last several years, the petitioners should also be regularised against the said posts with the scale of pay that may be fixed by the Governing Body of walmi. ( 8 ) THE writ application is disposed of with the aforesaid observations and directions. ( 9 ) REQUISITES for communication of this order be filed by day- after-tomorrow.