MIANWALI, Oct 14: Engineers at Chashma Nuclear Power Project (Chasnupp) are being made to work for 77 rather than the normal 40 hours a week without adequate remuneration.

A group of engineers on condition of anonymity told this scribe that some of the engineers had fled abroad due to inhospitable working conditions at Chasnupp. They stated that frustration and despondency created by the management posed a serious threat to the nuclear power plant.

They referred to the accident at Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Russia in 1985, which affected a large part of Russia and even parts of Germany and Sweden. The accident happened due to frustration among the employees, they claimed.

When contacted, Chasnupp general manager Ziaul Hassan Siddiqi said he was running the administration according to rules and regulations. The increase in the number of working hours was also covered by the rules, he claimed.

The engineers in their brief statement claimed that as per International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) regulations, the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) as well as Chasnupp were bound to ensure a maximum of 40 hours of work a week.

However, they were being made to work for 77 hours including Sunday as a working day. There is no holiday as per the office orders. They are not paid for the overtime.

Besides the additional working hours, engineers were also called back to the plant for surveillance tests and emergency work, which added up to working hours of 90 hours per week for some of the 250 engineers at the plant.

The engineers further alleged that inhuman behaviour of the management had caused some engineers to flee to the US, Canada and Australia. Up till now nine engineers have fled abroad while many others are seriously thinking to follow in their footsteps.

An engineers is able to work at a nuclear power plant after seven to eight years of training abroad, which costs the government nine million rupees. All that money goes waste if an engineer decides to go abroad, they observed.

The engineers said that normal 40-hour weeks were being observed at 13 other nuclear projects in the country.

They further disclosed that as per rules the assistant engineers, senior engineers and principal engineers could avail free telephone facilities upto a certain limit prescribed by the PAEC, but those living in far-flung areas among them had been denied these facilities.

The engineers requested the PAEC chairman and member (power) to mitigate their problems at the earliest.