Daily Times

ISLMABAD: The government has deprived the Pakistan Institute of Medical Science’s employees of their social and welfare schemes as the Establishment Division has formally declared PIMS an autonomous body and not a government entity.

The documents revealed available with Daily Times reveal that thousands of PIMS employees are now left in a difficult situation following the release of the establishment division’s letter envisaging that PIMS is an autonomous body and it has no concerns with government schemes.

The establishment division letter, issued on June 27 2016, says that the division is not the competent authority for upgradation of designated posts of the Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto Medical University Islamabad cum PIMS, being an autonomous body, or body corporate.

The letter further adds that the senate of SZABMU is the competent forum for this purpose.

The cabinet division is like a bombshell to thousands of PIMS employees, who were rendering their service to the poor patients for the last many years.

The Ministry of Housing and Works while interpreting this letter directed the PIMS employees to vacate the residence colony situated within the premises of PIMS, the source privy to this development told Daily Times.

According to law the autonomous institution of the country has no rights in the welfare scheme or housing schemes launched by the government as the board of the autonomous body has been empowered to launch its own welfare schemes.

Daily Times contacted the leaders of employees unions, who strongly condemned this letter and vowed to challenge it in the court, or higher echelons of power and added the protest movement could be started to protect the rights of thousands of employees.

A well placed source said that the establishment division issued this letter in response to a letter written by CADD seeking explanation regarding the status of PIMS employees and asked which authority was competent for upgrading employees.

The Chairman Joint Action Committee of PIMS Employees Union, Manzar Abbas Naqvi, told Daily Times that the government could not deprive the employees of PIMS by a mere wrong interpretation.

He also called upon the government either to withdraw this letter or separate PIMS from the medical university administratively, so that the rights of the low paid employees could be protected.

SZABMU Vice Chancellor, Dr, Javed Akram, told this scribe that the employees’ issue with the housing ministry including allotment of flats and quota in the new housing schemes had been resolved as the employees of PIMS would be entitled to get their share from the schemes of the ministry.

The housing and works ministry denied any agreement with the PIMS administration and clarified that until and unless the establishment division could not clear this ambiguity regarding the status of PIMS , the employees would not be able to get their due share in the welfare or housing schemes, that would be launched by the ministry.