Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Mar 1: Graduate Engineers hailing from all engineering departments of Jammu district held peaceful protest here today.
The protest was held under the banner of All J&K Graduate Engineers Association, all the engineers expressed concern over the Government’s move in which dedicated senior engineers of high caliber were arrested treating them as criminals.
In the protest, the speakers termed it as unfortunate incident and said that inspite of rendering 24X7 selfless services, the engineers are being targeted and harassed.
The speakers wondered over that why the arrested engineers were not given any chance to explain their position and why unilateral harsh action was chosen. It seems that some agencies are behind the whole scenario who want to malign the image of the engineering fraternity who are always at the beck and call of the Government and are always delivering in all ends, they said, adding that the said agencies are reportedly trying to sabotage the agenda of the Government towards the development by creating confrontation between the State Government and the engineers at the fag end of the financial year.
Earlier, the Association held a meeting with Naeem Akhtar, Minister for PWD (R&B), who was equally shocked and expressed his concern over this unfortunate incident.
He assured the Association that needful will be done and also agreed that engineers are cream of the society who join Government services after qualifying multiple competitive exams.
The Minister said that the image of the engineering community has suffered a lot and there is a need to rejuvenate the engineering cadre so that their achievements are recognized and suitably rewarded.
Minister also assured to resolve long pending core issues viz. running grades, regularization/confirmation of services of engineers at all levels, filling up of all the vacant posts by way of promotions.
The Association on behalf of State’s engineering fraternity assured full cooperation to the Minister which includes agenda of execution of developmental works with quality.
On Minister’s assurance, the protest rally from Lok Nirman Bhawan to Civil Secretariat was deferred.
The Association appealed to all the engineers to remain united and have confidence on the assurance of the Minister for PWD (R&B).
All the senior engineers (Junior Engineer to Chief Engineer) from R&B, PHE, Irrigation and Flood Control, ERA, JKPCC, Housing Board, PMGSY and others allied engineering departments participated in the protest.
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