Woes of National Internship Program internees

By Guest Writer

Government of  Pakistan introduced National Internship Program for unemployed fresh graduated youths to gain practical experience in different public-sector organizations. Every year the program witness influx of fresh talent eager to exploit their skills for betterment of the country. The monthly stipend stands 10,000 but being intern is still preferable than sitting idle.

The internees, in addition to experiencing disrespect by employees of host organization are also facing problems in getting the monthly stipend. Payments are delayed and mostly the internee gets such salary after waiting AGPR for at least 2 months.

The internees working in federal organizations are given cross cheques against their bank accounts by the Accountant General of Pakistan Revenue (AGPR) office, a name enough to intimidate any government employee.

The fashion of delay still remains intact despite several promises by Ministry of Youth Affairs, AGPR and the concerned officials. The cheques having salaries of April and May were given to internees in the last week of June, 2010 with dates varying but the cheques, which used to be valid for three months from the date of issue as pointed by a solid cross over such statement on the cheque, surprisingly, held the seal pointing the validity of cheques till 30th June and were not valid even for one week.

Most of internees got cheques on 29th June but the cheques, unfortunately, got the age less than 20 hours. By giving such cheques AGPR succeeded in fooling minds inexperienced to accounting and cheques ended up in being piece of trash as per various banks.

The first question raised by the aggrieved internees is probably that why such cheques carried such little age i.e. 1 to 3 working days. The answer from an unacknowledged person might be that the government is trying to increase funds by sacking their rights or enhancing exchequer by sacking the rights of internees. Surprisingly many of the interns received cheques on 29th June, 2010.

The government and concerned authorities i.e Finance Division, AGPR Office, MOYA and concerned ministries should take serious notice of such mishap to NIP Interns and try not to let their hard work of two months returned fruitless by providing viable and timely solutions. Moreover, the misconduct shown by AGPR employees toward internees is also loathing as they do not allow them even to ask for their rights or to inquire the status of their salaries.