IEB demands appointment of Engineers at tech-based organizations on its 76th Anniversary
Engineers Institution, Bangladesh (IEB), the oldest professional organization of the country, has claimed that due to the lack of engineers positioned in various engineering organizations related to technical issues, like the chairman, the chairman of the board of directors, the managing director, and above all, the lack of engineers in the top positions of the organizations is causing delays in planning and implementation. The organization feels that the top positions of the Rural Electrification Board, RAJUK and BCIC were previously occupied by engineers; but now non-engineers have been appointed. Therefore, with the aim of bringing overall mobility in engineering organizations and companies, engineers should be appointed in place of non-engineering persons in the top positions, including the chairman, managing director and directors of the board of directors of various engineering organizations, companies under the Power Department Board, companies under Petrobangla and Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation and other engineering-based institutions including Metrorail.
On the occasion of the 76th founding anniversary of the Institution of Engineers in Ramna of the capital on Monday, IEB's chief honoree General Secretary Engineer S. M. Manjurul Haque Manju placed this demand in a written statement.
President of Engineers Institution Engineer Md. Abdus Sabur presided over the press conference.
The press conference was attended by IEB Vice President Engineer Md. Shahadat Hossain Shiblu, Engineer Khandkar Manjur Morshed, Engineer Md. Nuruzzaman, Engineer Kazi Khairul Bashar, Assistant General Secretary Engineer Sheikh Tajul Islam Tuhin, Engineer Amit Kumar Chakraborty and Engineer Ronak Ahsan along with leaders of various departments, centers and sub-centres of IEB.
In the press conference, IEB presented written demands and arguments in front of journalists to improve the quality of the engineering profession in the country. The demands are highlighted below-
• Ensuring promotion and posting of Engineers:
Engineers working in most of the country's organizations are burdened with duties, additional duties, current duties. Even though the post is vacant, additional duties are being given to the incumbent without promotion from the concerned ministry. However, more than the approved posts of the administration cadre are being promoted. On the other hand, many engineering officers are not being promoted even after more than 20 years of service in the same post, despite having vacancies. As a result, organizations are creating chaos in the workplace and engineers are being discriminated against. In this case, if the engineers working in the engineering organizations are given the next stage of promotion or grade after the fulfillment of the service conditions in the feeder position, the engineers will get their fair rights on the one hand and on the other hand their motivation will increase and the development of the country will be accelerated. This problem will be solved if the organogram of engineering organizations is modernized.
• Changes in current job structure of polytechnic teachers:
The main demand of the polytechnic teachers is to replace the current job structure- like junior instructor-instructor-chief instructor-vice-principal-principal, instead implement the job structure like lecturer top professor. All the posts of Director including Director General have been occupied by other cadre officers in violation of the recruitment rules of the Directorate of Technical Education; it is not possible to develop technical education by non-technical people. I demand their immediate withdrawal and filling up of said posts by technical education cadre officers as per recruitment rules.
• BCS cadre recruitment to various engineering organizations:
a. Engineers of LGED are working tirelessly to implement “My Village My City”. But as LGED is not yet staffed, talented young engineers are leaving LGED. Therefore, to continue the development of the country's rural infrastructure and resources, I strongly demand that LGED come under cadre service.
b. All the engineers working in the water sector, including the engineers of the Water Development Board, are tirelessly performing their duties in the implementation of "Deltaplan-2100". I request the government to create “BCS Water Resources Engineering Cadre” for engineers working in water resources development in recognition of their work.
c. After the implementation of Digital Bangladesh, it has now been announced the construction of 'Advanced Prosperous Smart Bangladesh'. The role of computer engineers and telecommunication engineers is very important in building this 'Smart Bangladesh'. Therefore, implementation of BCS ICT cadre is essential to build 'Smart Bangladesh' and to meet the challenges of the fourth industrial revolution and strongly demand to resume the recruitment process of BCS Telecom cadre which has been closed since 2006.
d. Per capita GDP and remittances have increased in Bangladesh. Textiles and Garments are the main sector to earn foreign exchange through increasing the country's GDP and exports. In this regard, the role of the country's textile engineers is essential. Therefore, I strongly demand for the introduction of "Textile Cadre" with the aim of continuing to increase the GDP and remittances by increasing the production of the country.
e. Bangladesh Civil Service's "Senior Service Pool" i.e., Deputy Secretary of the Ministry is demanding to be appointed from various cadres through open competitive examination. Otherwise, I am demanding reservation of 30% of the post of Deputy Secretary for engineering bodies.
• Creation of Engineering Wing in Prime Minister's Office:
Engineers are the driving force of the country's development. But unfortunately, there is no walk of engineers in the office of Hon'ble Prime Minister. For this reason, there is a kind of disappointment in the minds of the technical engineers who are building the country. The Hon'ble Prime Minister's office has several wings through which the ongoing activities under various ministries are monitored. By forming an engineering wing in the Prime Minister's office and appointing skilled and experienced engineers to monitor and coordinate the ongoing infrastructural development activities under various ministries, the Prime Minister will be able to be aware of the projects easily and properly. As a result, the development projects will be implemented in a proper manner and on time and the construction of 'Smart Bangladesh' of Hon'ble Prime Minister and implementation of Vision-2041, Delta Plan-2100 will be facilitated.
• Appointment of Project Director (PD) in various projects:
We note with deep concern that serving or retired members of a special cadre without technical knowledge are being appointed as PDs in various large engineering and technology-based projects. In technical large-scale development projects, the pace of the project will be hampered due to the appointment of persons without technical education and knowledge as PDs. People without technical knowledge or engineering experience are being appointed as PDs, which needs to be stopped immediately. It is imperative in the national interest to appoint technically skilled persons as PDs.
• Integrating all power sectors under the control of PDB:
The Labor and Employment Ministry's Law Branch has declared the Essential Service Ordinance as essential for all categories of jobs in PDB after every 6 months. We have strongly requested them to provide risk allowance as the power plant has excessive noise pollution, constant electrification and various risks in electrical work. In order to speed up the work and to bring order back, I am calling for bringing all the power sectors under the control of PDB to be under the same umbrella in an integrated System.
It may be mentioned that, the Institution of Engineers, Bangladesh (IEB) was established on May 7, 1948 with the slogan 'Build a better world'. At present the membership of IEB is about seventy thousand.
On the occasion of the foundation anniversary, the institution will hold various programs on Tuesday. The ceremony will begin at 8 am at the IEB headquarters with hoisting of the national flag and the IEB flag. A cake cutting and discussion session will be held at 1:30 am This program will be held in 18 centers, 34 sub-centers and 14 overseas chapters of IEB.
