PESHAWAR: The leaders of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Association of Government Engineers have announced to go on lockdown strike to compel the government to grant technical allowance to them.

Speaking at a press conference here on Wednesday, Shakir Habib, the provincial convener of the association, said that the previous provincial government had approved technical allowance for engineers but finance department was creating hurdles in the process.

The engineers, he said, performed duty in all the weathers but successive governments neglected them. He said it was duty of the government to resolve problems of its employees so that they could focus on their duty with peace of mind.

Flanked by Ijaz Afzal,Sadiq Khattak, Zar Gul Khan and Qaiser Zaman, Mr Habib said that the engineers had been observing pen down strike for the last 10 days but the provincial government was yet to notify allowance for them.

“We will observe lockdown strike on Thursday in the province. All the offices will remain locked and no file work will be processed. In case the government uses delaying tactics, then the association will be left with the only option to suspend utility services in the province and also stop work on all ongoing schemes,” he said.

Published in Dawn, October 18th, 2018