LARKANA, Oct 18: The fate of around 300 employees of the Education department, of grade one to 16, hangs in balance as the local treasury office has refused to pass their salary bills.

The treasury officials turned down the bills on the pretext that the seats of the lower staff had not been shown in budget book, sources in the Education department said.

Safdar Mughal, president, All Pakistan Clerks Association, said that the Finance department had unilaterally reduced the number of the posts in the budget book.

The posts, shown in the budget book were less than the number of officials working on ground, an official in the Education department told this correspondent.

In the wake of this problem, the EDO, education, Larkana, in a letter to the DCO, Larkana, on Aug 22, pointed out that since the implementation of devolution plan, an incorrect strength of staff was being earmarked in the budget book, volume-III, resultantly a lot of problems were being experienced.

The district officer, education, boys, secondary and higher secondary, said that no difference had been noted in the number of staff working in administration, primary and middle schools (boys and girls) in the district and it stood at 711 posts.

The district government, in a letter addressed to the Sindh education secretary, has requested for streamlining the actual sanctioned strength in the budget book of 2002-2003 to resolve the issue.

The APCA has also urged the government to resolve the issue permanently. It said that most of the districts in Sindh were facing the problem.