KU exam department shut as staff refuse to work overtime

Karachi
The employees of Karachi University’s examination department closed down their offices on Wednesday afternoon and refused to work for longer hours to protest not being paid their overtime allowance and an acute shortage of office material.
On account of the closure of examination department, answer scripts of the LLB exam held on Wednesday could not be submitted to the department since none of the examination staff were there to receive them. Hence all the answer scripts had to be sent to the office of vice chancellor Prof Dr Mohammad Qaiser.
The examination department is a major source of earning for the Karachi University which at present faces an acute financial crisis.
By conducting graduation and masters exams throughout Karachi, the department earns valuable revenue for the varsity. However, its employees claim that they were not being paid against their services.
“We have decided not to work longer than the official timings,” said Kamran, one of the employees.
“If our demands are not met, we can even stage a strike by boycotting all examination work.”
According to him, examination staff hasn’t received their overtime allowance for the past six months. “Moreover, we have also not received the increment announced by the government in the federal budget,” he said. “We don’t even have the required stationery such as papers, printers, their cartridges, and other essential items because apparently there aren’t enough funds. It is extremely difficult for us to prepare results and issue mark sheets in these circumstances.”
Kamran further said that invigilators from different colleges had also not been paid for their services for the university’s examination department. “The invigilators blame us and threaten to stop working if we don’t compensate them for their work,” he said.
Meanwhile, the controller examination at Karachi University, Dr Arshad Azmi, confirmed that employees were extremely perturbed and had closed down the department on Wednesday afternoon.
“All the reservations and problems of the employees have been conveyed to the university administration, including the director finance, chief accountant and other higher officials but nobody is ready to listen and resolve their problems,” he said.
“I used to convince the employees to work for longer hours and make commitments on behalf of the university administration. But the frustration of employees has reached to an extent that they are now refusing to listen to anyone and have decided to take the route of open confrontation with the varsity administration.”
However, a senior university official said on the condition of anonymity claimed, “An army of professors had been recruited by the university and they were drawing huge sums of money, in addition to the hefty sums of their pensions. But the university is not willing to pay a few thousand rupees to its hardworking employees.”
He said millions of rupees were being spent on ‘fruitless’ activities at the university. “By controlling these pilferages, the varsity cannot only save millions of rupees but also pay its employees better,” he said.