PESHAWAR - Over 250 employees of the Pak-German Wood Working Center, Peshawar, and its eight branches in other districts have been working for decades without a service structure.
In the absence of service structure, the qualified workers of PGWWC, a semi-government organisation, were forced to work on fixed salaries and daily wages, the employees of the center said. The PGWWC and its branches were earning handsome amount every year as it has been supplying furniture to all government departments including thousands of public sector educational institutions, they said.
The production capacity of the center and its branches was over Rs 700 million, they said. The PGWWC was established in 1971-72 under the technical and financial assistance of German government for promotion and development of wood working industry. Keeping in view the increasing demand of its furniture because of high quality, the PGWWC branches were established in Dera Ismail Khan, Karak, Mansehra, Timergara, Chitral, Haripur and Batkhela to meet the demand, they said.
Besides providing furniture to government departments, the PGWWC is also imparting professional training, they said. It has 60 seats for the two years post matriculation certificate courses and three and a half year diploma course in wood technology, the employees said.
So far, over 600 persons have qualified two years certificate course and over 200 in wood technology, they said. Majority of the PGWWC qualified workers were on jobs in the leading factories inside and outside of Pakistan as its training was acceptable everywhere.
The employees said that they have been demanding of the government since long to frame service structure for them but to no avail. The PGWWC and its centers in other districts have been earning because of the hard work of the employees but the authorities didn’t provide them their due status, they said.
When contacted, advisor to the chief minister on industry department Abdul Karim said that the department was considering framing service structure for the employees of PGWWC. “I have held several meetings in this regard with the office bearers of the employees’ union and officials of the department and thinking for a solution”, he concluded.

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