No salary raise brings govt employees on roads

Rawalpindi : Public sector employees staged a protest rally against federal government for not increasing salaries in annual budget. The angry protesters raised anti-government slogans and demanded a rise in in their salaries according to inflation ratio threatening to stage a ‘sit-in’ in front of the Parliament.

The participants of the protest rally organised by All Pakistan Clerks Association (APCA) marched on Murree Road, shouting slogans against the government. The angry protesters carried banners and placards.

The rally also caused inconvenience to the people for many hours as vehicular traffic was diverted to nearby link roads. A heavy contingent of police was also present on the occasion to avoid any untoward incident.

The rally was jointly led by leaders of All Pakistan Clerks Association (APCA) including Changez Bhatti, Haji Farooq, Younas Ghauri, Malik Shafiq, Nazir Zada and representatives of railways workers union.

The employees’ representatives stressed the need for increase in different allowances, including house rent, medical, utility, and risk allowance in proportion to prevailing inflation.

The employees’ leaders said the government had ignored them in the federal and provincial budgets despite the fact that prices of daily use commodities were increasing day by day. They said COVID-19 pandemic had paralysed normal life, and they had no other source of income to meet their expenditures.

They warned that in case the government did not meet their demands they would devise a plan to march on Islamabad. They said that they had already presented its charter of demands to the government, but it did not bother to announce raise in salaries and allowances. They also passed resolutions against privatisation of steel mills and sacking of employees from different organisations.

The protesters lauded the Sindh government for increasing salaries of the employees and demanded of Prime Minister Imran Khan to honour his tall claims about bringing positive change in the lives of the poor. They said the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf leadership had ignored its commitments made with the people prior to the general elections.