PESHAWAR, Jan 15: NWFP's newly-drafted contract employment policy is likely to undergo major changes after questions were raised over some of its provisions about their contradicting the NWFP Civil Servants Act, 1973, officials said here on Thursday.

Officials in the provincial finance and establishment departments told this correspondent that a special committee, involving bureaucrats from various provincial departments, was working to remove lacunas.

"The contract employment policy of the provincial government has some serious in-built flaws ... Some of its provisions are in conflict with the NWFP Civil Servants Act, 1973," an official of the NWFP's establishment department said.

Officials said NWFP legislators, specially belonging to opposition parties had raised objections when the policy draft was presented before the provincial assembly, adding that opposition members of the NWFP Assembly had termed it to be against the Constitution, basic human rights and labour laws.

The proposed policy draft was referred to a house standing committee for further scrutiny after opposition members had raised objections in this regard.

Bureaucrats, officials said, had also objected to the draft of the contract employment policy. Sources said that there was a difference of opinion between the NWFP's establishment department and the provincial finance department, particularly over future measures to control the increase in the annual pension bill.

"The (NWFP) establishment department has serious reservations about the policy ... Flaws, if not removed, will have serious repercussions for some civil servants in case of switching over from permanent posts to contractual posts," an official said.

Sources in the finance department said that removal of technical flaws from the policy was the responsibility of the establishment department, saying: "We just want that the number of permanent employees of the provincial government should not grow from their existing level of about 283,000."

Presently, the NWFP government has around 80,000 retired employees on its payroll and the number is likely to more than double as employees recruited during the mid-1980s start getting retired.

The province would need around Rs10 billion per annum to pay its pension bill liabilities after a period of 15 years against its current annual pension bill of around Rs 3.6 billion.

The new policy, it was estimated, would also cause a considerable increase in the province's annual salary bill, which currently stood at around Rs17 billion or nearly 50 per cent of the province's total annual revenue receipts.

An official said after the introduction of the new policy, government employees on contract basis would not be covered by the NWFP Civil Servants Act, 1973, creating an anomaly.

"They [establishment department] can bring about amendments under the Civil Servants Act from the provincial assembly to rectify the situation," said an official of the NWFP finance department.