Engineers’ Movement Gains Momentum

Engineers – These people are among the lot who do the most arduous jobs in Pakistan be they constructing dams, motorways, designing housing schemes, running and maintaining industries, providing IT solutions and resolving issues through technological means and ways. Their effort is spread down to designing local water supply and drainage schemes in our cities across the country.
Of them, these are Balochistan engineers! You will probably ask then why they are being seen behind the bars if they are so useful for Pakistan.
Maybe, Balochistan’s provincial government feels enough is enough as they have set up their camp for over two weeks now in the provincial metropolis and demanding an allowance which they call technical allowance which, in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, their fellow engineers have started getting along with salaries.
Quetta has been one of Pakistan’s most unsafe cities where violence and terrorism have shattered the society but the authorities prefer to keep mum if the powerful demonstrate their power here.
But this is a different case! These engineers work with government departments and are struggling for their just demand—only 1.5 times of their basic pay scales. They landed in lockups because they are not that powerful than those who took over the city just a few days ago.
Swift intervention got Balochistan engineers out of lockups but the demand remains.
Engineers in Balochistan are not alone in their demand for technical allowance.
In Karachi, the largest city of Pakistan, hundreds of their fellow engineers took to the roads and staged a sit-in in front of Karachi Press Club. Sindh Association of Government Engineers (SAGE) had called for the demonstration and Pakistan’s engineering regulating body, Pakistan Engineering Council was well onboard.
In Pakistani engineers, be they in Quetta, Karachi or Lahore Engr. Qureshi is the driving force behind this struggle going on for a few months now. Engr. Jawed Salim Qureshi who won the contest for the second consecutive stint in office just a year ago believes only engineers can develop the nation. And for that engineers must be given what he claims they deserve.
Salim has a comprehensive plan for Pakistani engineers that he had floated during his election campaign. He wants the rightful stature for engineers so that they can be the decision-makers. But the biggest hurdle he finds is Pakistan’s deep-rooted powerful bureaucracy which refuses to create a space for engineers. Even the issue of technical allowance that lingers on in two provinces of Sindh and Balochistan is still unresolved for provincial bureaucrats. “The bureaucracy has hostaged engineers. We shall not allow non-engineers on the posts of professional engineers”, he resolved in front of Karachi Press Club.
Pakistani engineers have a host of issues to face. Thousands are jobless given Pakistan’s poor state of the economy, slowest growth rates and rampant corruption in engineering sectors have squeezed the opportunities for Pakistan engineers.
But Salim has launched a fresh move to create jobs for young engineers. He has a huge number of contractors registered with his council and each of the contractors is required to hire certified engineers on their projects. But they just flout the law and purchase engineers’ certificates merely to meet the requirement. He seems serious to put this longtime bad practice to an end. He would not stop here!
“Before elections we had worked out on Tec Construction Bank and the people would say how can we do it without money. I say it is not the money but your commitment which makes the ways”, he said while talking to ER.
Bringing engineers at par with Pakistan’s bureaucracy through making a service structure is a gigantic task. Can he do it alone? Taking former chiefs of Pakistan Engineering Council on board speaks loud about it.
Engineer Salim has attempted to create a consensus in Pakistan engineering Council which was a divided house but now seems to be consolidating into a platform where engineers’ groups are ready to cooperate with, at least Salim’s common agenda