PESHAWAR, March 27: The Basic Education Project for Afghan Refugees (Befare), funded by the UNHCR and other donor agencies, has started paying benefits to its employees who were laid off due to job cuts from Jan 1, 2004, to Dec 31, 2005.

Some 50 former employees, including teachers and support staff, who worked in schools in refugee camps in different areas, received one-month salary for every year of service during a ceremony held at the Befare main office here on Monday.

Befare chief executive Shakir Ishaq said the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) had provided Rs37 million to be paid to some 1,900 employees who were retrenched during 2004 and 2005.

About 70 former staffers had been invited to receive the benefits on the opening day of the scheme, but only 50 of them turned up, he said.

He said they expected about 100 people each day till the closure of the scheme on April 17. No claim would be entertained after the deadline, he added.

Only those employees who were laid off due to job cuts or abolition of posts were entitled to receive the retrenchment benefits, Mr Ishaq said.

The employees were retrenched either due to closure of refugee camps in some areas, or due to less allocation by the donor agencies and shortage of funds, which necessitated job cuts by the organization, he said.

Initially launched by the GTZ, a German NGO, in 1990s as a project to provide basic education to Afghans in the refugee camps in the Frontier province, Befare was converted into an independent organization in 2003.