1,534 staff of 26 TTCs unpaid for 6 months

The faculty and staff members of 26 technical training centres set up and run under Bureau of Manpower, Employment and Training development projects have been going without salary and other benefits for the past six months.

A total of 1,534 trainers and staffers are currently working at the centres against 2,136 sanctioned posts, said the TTC employees.

They accused the government of foot-dragging in taking the centres under the revenue budget since the end of the BMET development projects on various points of time before 2008.

According to the BMET, a total of 37 TTCs are now operating under it, offering various courses to generate skilled manpower for domestic and overseas employment. Currently, 11 of the centres are run under the revenue budget.

The development projects under which the 26 centre were set up were Establishment of 11 TTCs at the Country’s 11 Old Districts and One TTC in Dhaka for Women; Establishment of Five Mohila TTC in Rajshahi, Khulna, Sylhet, Chittagong, and Barisal Divisional Headquarters; Establishment of Seven TTCs in Thakurgoan, Lalmonirhat, Chapainawabganj, Khagrachari, Laxmipur, Narsingdi, and Natore Districts; and Establishment of TTCs in Jhenidah and Keraniganj Towns.

These centres started facing funding complications since their main operator BMET was transferred from the labour and employment ministry to the expatriates’ welfare and overseas employment ministry, leaving the TTCs in the lurch, the employees said

A number of trainers of Sheikh Fazilatunnesa Mujib Women’s Technical Training Centre in the capital told New Age that they had not received their salary and Eid bonus since October last.

The principal of the centre, Fouzia Shahnaz, admitted that there had been delays in paying the staff.

As the courses offered by the centres do not fall under the labour and employment ministry’s scope of work, their staff-members demanded for putting the TTCs under the expatiates’ welfare and overseas employment ministry, she told New Age.

Fouzia also called on the government for taking steps for timely disbursement of the monthly pays of the TTC staff-members.

Bilto Chakma, general secretary of 26 TTC Proshikkhak Karmochari Kalyan Parishad, told New Age on Friday that the TTC staff-members became totally frustrated about their professional future due to irregular salary payments since 2010 and the government’s procrastination in putting their jobs under the revenue budget.

Despite holding several talks with ministers and officials concerned on incorporating the centres into the revenue sector, they so far have received nothing but empty promises, said Bilto.

When asked, BMET director general Begum Shmasun Nahar told New Age that the government had initiated a process to resolve the problem.

She said all the 26 centres would be gradually taken under the revenue budget.

To another question, she said around 65,000 skilled workers were groomed by the country’s 37 TTCs in 2012.