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| August 4, 2005 | Thursday | Jumadi-us-Sani 27, 1426 |
PTDC workers await service regularization
CHITRAL, Aug 3: More than 20 employees of the Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation (PTDC) are awaiting the regularization of their services who have served the organization for anything between 10 and 21 years. Talking to Dawn, requesting anonymity, some of them said that successive governments had pledged to regularize their services which would entitle them to enjoy the perks and privileges enjoyed by corporation employees but this dream did never come true.
They said that the monthly emolument of about Rs3000 per month was quite insufficient for their survival. Working on purely contract basis, they draw only the nominal daily wage and cannot think of other allowances and facilities enjoyed by the permanent staff.
They said that hoping for regularization of services, they passed a good part of their lives and rendered incapable of gaining service in other departments as most of them had crossed the age limit necessary for government service.
They said that with the opening of hotels in the district at Booni, Bumburate, Birmogh Lusht and Mastuj, they had attached great hopes with the senior officials of the corporation but in vain. If we are not regularized, we shall go to our homes empty-handed even after having served the organization for 40 years, they lamented.
GOLEN GOL POWER PROJECT: Work has yet to be started on the Golen Gol hydel power by Wapda while it was scheduled to be completed by the year 2006. The power house with a generation capacity of 106 megawatts (mw) was approved by the ECNEC in its meeting in July 2000 and it was to be commissioned to work within the stipulated time of five years.
The estimated cost of the project was Rs6 billion. In the year 2001, Wapda established its construction division office in Chitral and an executive engineer was posted but not a single step has been taken since then except for acquiring land for the colony. No land for the construction of the power house and approach road to the proposed dam has been acquired.
The central government has released not a single penny for the construction of the power house since then but amazingly the organization is maintaining an establishment in Chitral whose job is nothing except drawing salaries. The rumours are that the project has been shelved by the government due to unknown reasons but anticipating public uprising, it is being kept secret.
For the coming fiscal year as well no funds have been allocated for the project which corroborates the public calculations of winding up the project. The people of Chitral had pinned great hopes on the project as they had been fed up of the frequent power breakdowns. A slight inclement in weather is enough to disconnect the district from the national grid and during winter it is beyond human control to repair the severed line in the Lowari Pass.
The need of power has been estimated at 20mw and the surplus amount of electricity can be carried to the down districts by erecting pylons in the Lowari pass as they are able to withstand the harsh climatic conditions.
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