772 college teachers regularised in K-P
PESHAWAR:October 16:Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa on Friday unanimously approved a move to regularise services of 772 college teaching assistants in the province.
Proposed in a private member bill, the move was approved by both the opposition and treasury benches during Friday’s provincial assembly session.
Teaching assistants had been recruited by the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) government in 2014 and 2015 to address a shortage of lecturers in colleges across the province.
The teaching assistants have since been demanding their regularisation. They have held sit-ins and rallies outside the K-P assembly and even in front of Imran Khan’s palatial residence in Bani Gala, Islamabad.
Despite the protests, the higher education department was unwilling to regularise these teachers.
Qaumi Watan Party (QWP) lawmaker Meraj Humayun and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) Mehmood Khan and Sardar Muhammad Idrees had tabled the bill in the house on Friday as a private member bill. With the assembly speaker and the lawmakers keen on claiming credit for regularising the teachers, they pushed to vote on and pass the bill almost immediately.
The Awami National Party (ANP) congratulated the lawmakers and teaching assistants after the bill was passed.
“I do not know who gave them [teaching assistants] the advice to stage protests outside Bani Gala for having their demands fulfilled. I congratulate them and would also like to share this prescription with other government employees if they want their demands to be fulfilled by the government,” he quipped.
The bill’s passage through the assembly was made simpler since few treasury members attended Friday’s session, most preoccupied with a rally by PTI Chief Imran Khan scheduled to be held in the provincial capital later in the day.
Assembly Speaker Asad Qaiser even decided to defer questions over the bill, all addressed to the K-P Elementary and Secondary Education Department, since education minister was absent.
With the bill passed, the government has regularised the services of these teaching assistants in basic pay scale grade 17 with the designation of a lecturer.
JUI-F wants Battagram area removed from Kohistan
Weeks after the K-P government approved the creation of Kollai Pallas Kohistan, the third district of Kohistan, the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Fazl (JUI-F) demanded that the government withdraw the notification.
JUI-F’s Shah Hussain Khan argued that the government had included Chor Valley of Balija – part of Battagram’s Allai Tehsil.
Hussain has been elected from PK-60-II for three consecutive terms, and both the Chor Valley and Balija areas fall within his constituency.
Hussain asked the government to separate the two areas from the newly established Kollai Pallas Kohistan district.
“The people of Allai are not happy with the decision and the government should take it back,” he said. It was decided that Hussain would sit with senior members of K-P board of revenue to resolve the issue.
Additional bills tabled
Lawmakers also tabled the K-P Employees of Energy and Power (Regularization of Services) Bill 2017 on Friday. The bill aims to regularise employees of the energy department who have been working in the planning cell of the department for years on contracts.
Similarly, lawmakers also tabled the Appointment of Employees of M&E System in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Bill 2017 and the K-P Capacity Building, Planning and Development Department Employees (Regularization of Services) Bill 2017 in the house.
Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) lawmaker Sardar Fakhar Azam — who has always been active on the issue of employee regularisation— asked the speaker to include the bills on the agenda for the next assembly sitting so that the laws can be passed without delays.
The government also tabled the K-P Minerals Sector Governance Bill 2017, and the K-P Local Government (Amendment) Bill 2017.
The assembly has already passed the minerals bill this year, but the government has brought it back to the parliament since it was legislated on an existing ordinance. However, the ordinance was not approved by the K-P cabinet before being presented in the assembly — a technical requirement stipulated by Supreme Court of Pakistan.
The local government bill is aimed at granting legal authority — under the local government act — to all local areas development authorities working across the province to continue their work within their assigned jurisdictions.Published in The Express Tribune,
