PESHAWAR - Engineers’ community of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa raised voice for professional allowance on the basis of grade wise ratio as given to the doctors’ fraternity besides complaining for lack of the service structure and up-gradation of their posts.

In a meeting of engineers from all over the province chaired by Engineer Shakir Habib, President C&W Engineers Association, at Civil Secretariat Peshawar, it was decided to submit written charter of demands to the Chief Minister Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP).

The charter appealed for grant of professional allowance to engineers that is already fixed as Rs85,000 per month for junior engineers in BPS-17 (Asst Engineer, Asst Director (T), SDO, Asst Tehsil Officer Infrastructure and Asst Research officer), Rs1,10,000 for BPS-18 (Executive Engineer, Design Engineer, Technical Officer, Deputy Director (T), Research Officer, Tehsil Officer Infrastructure), Rs1,50,000 for BPS-19 (Superintending Engineer, Principal Design Engineer and all directors) and Rs2,00,000 for BPS-20 (Chief Engineer, Managing Director and Director General).

The chief minister was further appealed to upgrade all the engineers so that they could also reach to BPS-21 in their career like that of doctors. Similarly, the meeting expressed concern regarding undue delay in promotion cases of engineers in various departments for want of senior management course (SMC).

It was revealed that currently four posts of chief engineers were lying vacant in C&W department and one each in irrigation and PHE departments due to SMC factor that also hindered smooth functioning of the vital nation-building entities.

The speakers articulated that SMC was unjustified barrier against legal rights of engineering community because as per para-11b of promotion policy 2009 incorporated in ESTA code 2011, the condition of training (SMC, MCMC, NMC) was not applicable to civil servants in specialised cadres like engineers, doctors and research scientists. The matter was also supported by KP Law Department and submitted to Establishment Department but the action was still awaited for long whereas engineers were the worst target, they added.

Engineer Shakir Habib while seconding the demands said that engineering community whole-heartedly supported development policy of the government and wanted to play active role in socio-economic uplift of the province. He said that the skills of engineers, the cream of the nation, owed all diversified fields of development from communication, highways, industry, mineral exploration, urban and rural development to technical education and drinking water sector.

However, he lamented that engineers languished at their initial positions for decades and drew meagre salaries to make both ends meet. He asked for an early attention of the govt to sort out problems and demands of the engineering community for prosperous future of the province.