-Over 7000 sub-engineers are associated with projects in highways, public health engineering, C&W and irrigation departments
LAHORE: The development projects that are considered as the hallmark of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government are in jeopardy as the sub-engineers associated with different schemes of the province have announced to go on a protest from Monday, it has been learnt.
As per the details, over seven thousand sub-engineers working as the employees of the Punjab government and the Association of Associate Engineers (AAE) have decided to boycott their official duties from Monday in order to press for their demands that include service structure and departmental promotion. The AAE has over three thousand sub-engineers as permanent members and most of them are associated with different infrastructure schemes being carried out in the irrigation, highways, public health engineering and communication and works (C&W) departments of the Punjab government.
Talking to Pakistan Today, Nauman Tipu, the president of AAE, said that sub-engineers were considered as the backbone for the development of the province, but they had been left with no other option except to boycott their duties in every district and division due to the lethargic attitude of the government towards them.
“All the sub-engineers of Punjab are working on the Basic Pay Scale (BPS) of 14 despite the fact that they are getting BPS-16 in other parts of the country including Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and Balochistan,” Tipu said, while adding that they have apprised the C&W secretary repeatedly regarding their grievances that remain unaddressed.
He further added that the quota of SDO for sub-engineers should be increased to 25 per cent from its current share of 15 per cent as this quota for sub-engineers in Sindh was 30 %. “The sub-engineers are not being given a charge on the vacant seats of SDO while the government is also not implementing the mandatory quota of 13 per cent for sub-engineers to be deputed as excision,” he added.
“All demands are genuine as it is the fundamental right of every citizen to get equal treatment according to the Constitution of Pakistan, but the treatment being given to us is quite different from the sub-engineers working in other federating units of the country,” he said and added that they were also ready to hit the roads if their demands were not met by the government.
Elaborating the reservations of the sub-engineers of Punjab, he said that there was no service structure at all for the sub-engineers of the province and their promotions were also pending in different departments for a long time. “The mandatory exams to get promotions are supposed to be held twice in a year but the government doesn’t take even a single exam for our promotion in the whole year,” he said, while explaining the injustice with sub-engineers who play vital role in the infrastructure development and work in the deserted areas for the uplift of the development schemes.
It is not the first time that the government employees were planning to come on the roads as earlier doctors, nurses, paramedics, clerks and other employees of the health department had also turned up and demonstrated while demanding the service structure and promotions.