SHANGLA: Sacked employees of the social welfare department have demanded of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government to reinstate them.

Talking to reporters here on Tuesday, the laid-off employees said they were hired on contract basis in 2016 for a vocational training programme, but the government had fired 315 employees on July 31, and rolled back the training initiative.

They said they had imparted different skills to hundreds of women, including widows, in the 105 vocational training centres set up by the social welfare department across the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

Salma Ihsan, one of the sacked workers, said the women empowerment programme had enabled women from both rural and urban areas to earn a decent living.

“Trained women are now earning handsome money with honour inside their houses. Instead of suspending the programme and firing us from our jobs the government should regularise our services and continue the initiative in the province,” she said.

Ms Ihsan said the sacked employees included 210 women and 105 men. She added that most of the vocational training centres were set up in Swat, Shangla, Chitral, Upper and Lower Dir and Bajaur.

Hamidullah, another fired worker, said then chief minister Pervaiz Khatak had initiated the programme to empower women of the rural areas.

“I appeal to incumbent Chief Minister Mahmood Khan to order reinstatement of the sacked workers,” he said.

He threatened that the sacked employees would stage a protest in front of the Chief Minister’s House in Peshawar if they were not reinstated.

Published in Dawn, September 1st, 2021