Diploma Engineers
Downgrading sparks protest
Demonstrators block roads in capital, other places
Diploma engineers and teachers and students of polytechnic institutes yesterday blocked roads and highways adjacent to the institutes across the country to press home their two-point demand. Under the banner of Diploma Engineering Peshajibi Chhatra-Shikkhak Sangram Parishad, they also held rallies in Dhaka, Chittagong, Rajshahi, Khulna, Sylhet and many other places as part of an earlier announced programme for realising their demands.
The demands include elimination of “professional discrimination” against diploma engineers and “timely promotion” of diploma teachers at the polytechnic institutes — both public and private.
The parishad will submit a memorandum containing the demands to the Speaker on September 25.
Leaders of the parishad yesterday alleged that police attacked their “peaceful demonstrations” in Dinajpur, Comilla and Patuakhali.
In Dhaka, several hundred diploma engineers and teachers and students of polytechnic institutes blocked Satrasta intersection at Tejgaon around 12:00noon, halting traffic for about an hour that resulted in a huge tailback.
They withdrew the blockade following assurance from Home Minister Muhiuddin Khan Alamgir that their demands would be met soon, said the demonstrators and police.
“We want the government to remove the professional discrimination through changes in the gazette concerning diploma engineers issued in 2008,” said Idris Ali, president of Bangladesh Polytechnic Shikkhak Samity.
The gazette downgraded the rank of diploma engineers by defining them as supervisors, instead of engineers. “It’s a discrimination against diploma engineers,” Idris told this correspondent.
Many of them end up being in the same position for 20-25 years, he alleged. “We demand introducing a new system of promotion for diploma engineers so that they are not kept without promotion for years,” he said.
Idris said despite repeated instructions from the highest level of the government in this regard, the authorities concerned have not taken any step yet.
AKMA Hamid, president of the Institute of Diploma Engineers, said, “It is [two-point] our longstanding demand but it is yet to be met.”
He claimed that around 4 lakh diploma engineers, teachers and students of 400 polytechnic institutes are making the two-point demand.
The situation was brought under control at about 1:00pm.
Yesterday, the demonstrators barricaded Gate No-2 intersection in Chittagong city, halting traffic on the main road for more than an hour and a half, reported our correspondent.
Around 700 students and teachers of the polytechnic institute and diploma engineers from different government organisations brought out a procession and blocked the intersection at about 11:00am.
Police calmed down the demonstrators and freed the road around 12:30 pm.
In Dinajpur, police fired nine tear gas shells as the demonstrators resorted to vandalism in the district town, reported our correspondent.
The demonstrators blocked Dinajpur-Rangpur highway passing by Dinajpur Polytechnic Institute around 11.00am and damaged a battery-run auto-rickshaw. The situation was brought under control around two hours later.
-With The Daily Star input
