Agriculture engineers are denied the right to compete with civil engineers for recruitment in irrigation department
TANDOJAM: Pakistan is an agricultural country having more than 16 million hectares of land cultivated through the world’s largest contiguous irrigation network. The operation, maintenance, repair, and the development of the entire irrigation network from dams and rivers to distributaries and minors are looked after by Wapda and provincial irrigation departments. Recently the Sindh irrigation department invited applications for the posts of 31 Assistant Executive Engineers in the department through the Sindh Public Service Commission. Applications were invited only from Civil Engineers, while Agriculture Engineers were completely ignored and denied to compete, though Agriculture Engineers have equal or even more knowledge and capabilities to operate the irrigation and drainage networks of Sindh. An agriculture engineer studies nine engineering core courses on irrigation, drainage, hydrology, hydraulics, construction, etc. whereas, in civil engineering, only five core courses are taught. Five more related courses on agriculture, crop water requirement, soil, surveying are also taught to agriculture engineers, whereas civil engineers learn only two related courses. An agriculture engineer knows well how to operate the need-based irrigation network efficiently as per crop water requirement. Though agriculture engineers learn more courses of irrigation and drainage, they are denied the fundamental right to compete with civil engineers for the recruitment in the irrigation department. I appeal to the prime minister of Pakistan, the chief justice of Pakistan, the chief minister of Sindh, the irrigation minister and other related officials to allow agriculture engineers to compete with civil engineers for the posts of executive engineers in the Sindh Irrigation Department. We might get good irrigation engineers through competition, who can run the irrigation and drainage network of Sindh efficiently and effectively.
Dr Altaf Ali Siyal
Published in The Express Tribune, February 4th, 2020.
Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.
