The Hyderabad Development Authority (HDA) and its subsidiary Water and Sanitation Agency (WASA) continue to violate the Supreme Court's order which barred employing officers with diploma or bachelors of technology qualifications on engineering positions.
The diploma or BTech (hons) qualified officers are not only supervising the city's water supply and sewerage, but have also been executing the development schemes worth hundreds of millions of rupees.
The flagrant lack of compliance of the apex court's order, as well as the Pakistan Engineering Council Act, 1975, has been identified in the letters written by some graduate engineers, posted on BS-18 position in WASA, to the secretary HDA. "There are numerous non-professionals and non-PEC [certified] executive engineers who are working in [WASA's subdivisions in] City, Latifabad and Qasimabad," wrote a BPS-18 executive engineer to the secretary.
"Moreover, these engineers are working on several other [development] projects as well." On April 24, 2018, the supreme court ordered that the professional engineering work can only be performed by professional engineers as recognized by the PEC Act, possessing accredited engineering qualification from accredited engineering institutions in Pakistan and abroad. They were also supposed to qualify the certification test conducted by the PEC.
The same judgment stated that the officers holding diploma or B.tech should be stopped from performing the engineering tasks. Following that order, the Sindh government conveyed to all the concerned departments to stop assigning engineering works to the diploma or b.tech holders.
"In compliance with the judgment of honourable supreme court, Director General HDA has been pleased to order ... that all the engineers who are not registered with PEC are hereby restrained and relieved from such duties of professional engineering," reads January 1, 2019, office order issued by the former secretary of HDA Muhammad Afzal Qazi.
A similar letter was written by another secretary of HDA, Rehmatullah Jamali, on September 24, 2020. However, the above mentioned official correspondence apparently served the purpose of record keeping as the non-graduate engineers were allowed to continue working on the positions of the graduate engineers.
"All the annual development plan (ADP) schemes of water supply and sewerage including other development schemes are also being executed by non-graduate and non-PEC certified engineers," a BS-18 execute engineer wrote in the letter to the secretary HDA. "They are also signing the measurement books which is a serious violation of the PEC and the apex court's judgment."
An official, who requested anonymity, told that five graduate engineers and three non-graduate engineers are currently working on BPS-18 posts in WASA. "However, most of the development schemes are being executed by two diploma and b.tech holders," he claimed.
According to him, there are four subdivisions of water supply in City, three in Latifabad and two in Qasimabad talukas. Likewise, City has three subdivisions of sewerage, Latifabad four and Qasimabad two. "Except one graduate engineers, all the subdivisions are being headed by non-graduate BPS-17 AENs [assistant executive engineers]."
The official claimed that b.tech qualified executive engineer Muhammad Ali Baig has recently submitted works of Rs80 million in the Rs380 million sewerage project in City while holding the additional charge of XEn City for around one and a half month. The projects concerns laying of around 16,000 feet sewerage pipeline from Tulsidas to Darya Khan pumping stations besides additional components of drainage works outside Qadam Gah Moula Ali (RA) and Goods Naka.
Both the HDA and WASA are currently being headed by the DG and MD on additional charge basis. The former seat became vacant on May 20 and the latter on April 30 when Muhammad Sohail and Zahid Hussain Khemtio were transferred from HDA and WASA, respectively.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 13th, 2022.
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