Police ministerial staff seek allowances

PESHAWAR: The police ministerial staff has now attached expectations with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police chief Moazzam Jah Ansari as none of the former police chiefs was able to redress their grievances.

According to senior members of the police ministerial staff, they had been struggling for the past many years but none of the police chiefs bothered to take notice of their sufferings.

They were hopeful that the government would accept their demands and approve their allowances in the previous annual budget, but it didn’t happen.

The ministerial staff complained that like the rest of the people, the price-hike and inflation had also affected them but they were still deprived of their deserved allowances.

Like other provinces, the KP police ministerial staff is also exposed to terrorism and violence but they were yet to get allowances offered to staff of other provinces, they complained.

In recent past one junior clerk was martyred outside Kalu Khan Police Station in Swabi district, one assistant grade clerk was martyred at Peshawar and another identified as Bakht Afsar was kidnapped in Swat by the terrorists on December 8, 2008 and the first information report was registered at the Mingora Police Station in Swat.

Reportedly two class-IV employees were martyred in Swat at that time. Many other incidents have occurred, which were on record if the police chief took notice and could seek reports from each district of KP. They asked the provincial police chief to approve their genuine allowances including daily risk allowance, 7 days fixed daily allowance and special law and order allowance.

According to them, all officers right from deputy superintendent of police of BPS-17 up to the inspector general of police are getting schedule allowance but the ministerial staff of BPS-17 was deprived of the same.

The ministerial staff complained that even an acting DSP (Inspector BPS-16) was given a vehicle and office along with other allowances, but the ministerial staff is never given such facilities.

“I don’t understand why the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government and police force is reluctant to pay allowances to the ministerial staff which is given to the same staff in other provinces including Punjab and Gilgit-Baltistan. We are waiting for our the incumbent police chief to take note of this discrimination and approve our allowances,” one member of the ministerial staff told The News.

He said there were around 26,000 employees of the ministerial staff and all of them were passing through difficult periods as nobody was listening to them and their grievances.