PESHAWAR, Sept 5: The federal government’s decision to increase the salary of public sector employees by 15 per cent from the current financial year will not apply to those working on fixed salary or on contract basis.

Officials in the provincial finance department said the government’s decision covered those employees who were working on a regular basis or had been recruited through the federal and provincial public service commissions, and not the contractual staff.

There are more than 300,000 employees working in various departments of the provincial government and a significant number of these employees are working on a contract basis or against fixed salary.

Asked about the total number of such employees, an official said it must be in thousands as a large number of workers had been recruited on the contract basis in the past two years.

Representatives of the All Pakistan Clerks Association (Apca), United Municipal Workers Union (Umwu) and Coordination Council of the NWFP Secretariat Employees’ Associations said a majority of those people were class-IV employees.

“There are about 32,000 employees who have not been given the raise,” said provincial Apca chairman Mohammed Aslam Khan.

United Municipal Workers Union chairman Malik Naeed said that the employees working against fixed salary received Rs3,500 per month with no other benefit and no payment against extra duty hours.

The labour leaders said the matter had been taken up with the provincial and federal governments on more than one occasion but to no avail.

Chief Minister Akram Khan Durrani expressed inability to sanction the raise for these employees in accordance with the federal government’s decision, but he promised to improve terms and conditions under which thousands of contractual employees were working on the fixed salary, said Mr Aslam Khan.

Officials pointed out that contractual employees had been given a Rs500 raise last year, but this time the federal government had ignored them.

“While the federal government has fixed the minimum monthly salary of factory workers at Rs4,000 per month, thousands of provincial public sector employees continue to get Rs3,500,” regretted Malik Naveed.

The Umwu chairman called upon the provincial government to bring the salary of all employees working on fixed salary on a par with the minimum wages fixed for factory workers.