By SIKANDER SHAHEEN
ISLAMABAD - The National Internship Programme (NIP) that was started in March 2007, by the previous government, does not seem to get any attention by the present regime.
Almost 20 thousand to 30 thousand unemployed educated youth were placed in several government departments including Railways, Economic Affairs, Income Tax Customs, Foreign Office and several other organizations, on paid internship for a period of one year.
The internees were informed at the inauguration ceremony of the NIP, that experience certificates would be handed over to them on the completion of their one-year internship. But the then government gave no job surety.
However, after the passage of one year, the initial batches that have completed their internship are still waiting for their experience certificates.
Further more, no formal closing ceremony of the completion of the internship was conducted and the internees were only verbally told not to come after one year without the issuance of any written circular.
It seems that the reason of the apathy of the present government towards this programme lies in the fact that the National Internship Program was initiated by the previous regime, and the present government is trying to abandon all the policies that had been initiated by the previous government.
The first batch of the NIP completed its internship on March 31 2008. Almost three months have passed but internship certificates have not been issued.
Those internees who have shown extra ordinary performance during internship, and have attained A-grades in their Annual Performance Reports, are waiting for the appreciation letters to be issued to them.
Moreover, initially, it was announced by the government that new internship batches would be accommodated as advertised in the newspapers, but so far nothing has been done in this regard.
The internees who have completed their internships are pessimistic about their future. "Presient Musharaf started the internship programme last year, since that was an election year, and he simply wanted to attract the youths vote bank by doing so", said Nadeem Tariq, an internee from the first batch, who had completed his internship and is awaiting for certificate.
