Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Capital Administration & Development Division (CADD) Minister Dr Tariq Fazal Chaudhry on Wednesday admitted before the Islamabad High Court (IHC) that discrimination was done with daily wages employees of Federal Directorate of Education (FDE) in respect of their non-regularisation and non-payment of salaries of some months.

CADD Minister Dr Tariq Chaudhry appeared voluntarily before the two-member divisional bench comprised of Justice Aamer Farooq and Justice Mohsin Akhtar Kayani and he admitted that regularisation of daily wage employees was an overwhelming issue and lingered since 2011 that he said is sheer injustice with the employees.

“I can realise the problems of these employees who are working on very meagre salaries for the last many years,” he remarked before the court.

The available information suggests that initially there were around 2,000 daily wagers while some of them had quit their jobs after exhaustion from constantly demanding their salaries. Currently, there are around 1,750 daily wagers of the FDE including teaching and non-teaching staff its different institutions. Their monthly salary is equal to Rs 14,000 per month.

When the court asked about a committee’s recommendations constituted by opposition leader Syed Khurshid Shah in 2011, Dr Tariq Chaudhry said that the committee was perfect while the ministry had regularised a number of employees in some departments in compliance of that committee’s recommendation. Justice Mohsin Kayani questioned if daily wage employees have been regularised or not. In response, Dr Chaudhry informed the court, “Yes, that has been done and only their joining against the vacant posts is due.”

Dr Chaudhry reaffirmed in court that he personally wanted to resolve this issue during the tenure of the outgoing government, adding that the ministry was already involved in seeking legal consultation from the Ministry of Law and it would be finalised soon hopefully.

However, the court directed Dr Chaudhry to give his stance in writing instead of verbal. The court reserved the case until indefinite time period.

Currently, these employees have been staging a protest in front of the National Press Club for over 100 days now. All of them have boycotted the academic classes in respective schools and colleges. The information suggests that many among them have not been paid since June last year. In March, only few such employees received their salaries while the remaining suffer.

Disappointed by CADD authorities, the daily wagers also filed an application with the Supreme Court in recent requesting for suo-motu action over their plight.

“We are being paid a monthly salary of Rs 1,4000 which equals to Rs 350 per day while the daily wage of an unskilled labourer and skilled labourer is Rs 500 and Rs 800 respectively. We, the teachers, are nation builders and many among us have qualification of Masters, MPhil and PhD producing our respective school/college results perfectly not less than 100 percent even in a single institution,” they contented in the application.

In 2009, a committee was formulated by Syed Khurshid Shah for regularisation of contractual employees. In light of that committee findings, over 100,000 contractual servants working in different public sector departments have been regularised.

In two different notifications submitted on December 12 and December 22 last year, a copy of which is available with Daily Times, the Ministry of Federal Education & Professional Training also confirmed the regularisation of 63 employees.

Furthermore, after coming into power in 2013, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz government regularised over 11,000 employees of various cadres working in different federal entities.

Published in Daily Times, April 26^th 2018.