Pen-down strike of engineers enters 3rd day

PESHAWAR: The pen-down strike of the public sector engineers for acceptance of their demands entered 3rd consecutive day on Wednesday.

The members of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Association of Government Engineers have set up a protest camp at the Communication and Works (C&W) Department to press the government for acceptance of their demands.

Convener, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Association of Government Engineers, Shakir Habib said that they presented four demands including up-gradation, professional allowance, abolition of the quota in grade-17 engineering jobs for Bachelor of Technology (B-Tech) and diploma holders and allowing the public sector engineers limited private practice.

He said the quota allocated for diploma holders was unjust and a move towards denying rights to Bachelor of Engineering degree holders.

About the private practice, he said, the salaries of the engineers were too low and their families cannot manage their domestic budget in their present income. “The doctors and other government employees are allowed private practice then why the engineers are denied the same. There is no harm in allowing private practice to engineers,” he remarked.

Shakir Habib said that the engineers of C&W, Public Health, Irrigation, Local Government, Peshawar Development Authority, housing, mines and mineral and other sister departments have launched the protest campaign across the province from Monday last.

He maintained that the engineers had time and again presented their demands to chief minister, ministers and secretaries of concerned departments but to no avail. “We are moving from pillar to post for the past six months to get our demands accepted but to no avail,” he added.

He said the incumbent assemblies would be over in next few weeks but no progress could be made over their demands. “We are left with no other options but to go into a protest,” he maintained.

Shakir Habib said the association had barred its members from carrying out cost estimation, stop clearing contractors bills, boycott all government meeting and activities and not make arrangements for launching or inaugural ceremony of any government project and not hold any briefing on such occasions across the province.

Senior Local Government Minister Inayatullah Khan, Minister for Auqaf and Religious Affairs Habibur Rehman, Minister for Sports and Irrigation Mehmood Khan, Advisor to Chief Minister on Prisons Malik Qasim Khan had visited the protest camp during the past three days but failed to persuade them to end the protest.

Shakir Habib said the ministers told them to arrange a meeting with Chief Minister Pervez Khattak but so far no progress could be made in this regard.

Leaders of opposition parties also visited the protesters and expressed solidarity with them. He said in the second phase of the protest, the engineers would surrender the development funds to the government if their demands were not accepted by Monday.