PESHAWAR: Scores of engineers and jobless professionals on Saturday demonstrated against lack of job opportunities, absence of proper service structure and demanded of the government to provide them with jobs and facilities on the pattern of rest of the departments.

The protesters led by office-bearers of Pak Ambitious Guild of Engineers were holding placards and banners inscribed with their demands.

They also shouted against the government apathy.

Talking to mediapersons the association’s president Aamir Khattak, general secretary Ahmed Faraz and another office-bearer Mohammad Asim said every year thousands of students were obtaining engineering degrees but the government had no planning to accommodate them.

They said about 15,000 engineers were presently unemployed alone in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, but the government was least bothered to provide them with jobs.

Engr Asim said the Pakistan Engineering Council had prepared a draft of service structure which was pending at the prime minister’s secretariat for approval.

The engineers, he said, in a state of compulsion were going abroad while thousands of others were working in the country as skilled labourers at meager salaries.

He said engineers holding bachelor degree were exploited with no official policy for their placement.

He said doctors were given house jobs but there was no such plan for engineers to get training stipend, adding the government should stop the discrimination so that the engineers could play effective role in the country’s development.

He suggested that if government approved paid internship plan then the brain drain would also stop.

Mr Asim said the federal government had promised to accommodate the engineers in different projects of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor but it was yet to materialise its commitment.

He said the government should establish academies for arranging free technical courses, paid internship to the professional degree holders and ensure job guarantee.

Published in Dawn, October 29th, 2017