August 24, 2007	Friday	Sha’aban 10, 1428

PESHAWAR, Aug 23: The lack of a proper service structure and other problems have been affecting performance of employees of the regional meteorological centre, sources said.

Set up at the time of the Partition, the department with 200 employees does not have a proper service structure. Most of its technical staff perform duties in 11 observatories, some of them in remote hilly areas, but facilities given to them are next to nothing.

“After the October 8 earthquake in the country, the meteorological department has assumed significance, but the employees are yet to be provided certain facilities so that they could deliver,” said an official.

Five to 20 observers work at observatories located in Chitral, Barosh, Markani, Saidu Sharif, Malam Jabba, Kalam, Cherat, Parachinar, Bannu, Dir and Peshawar. The staff posted in remote areas often remains cut off from the rest of the country for several months in winter, but they are not paid any allowance for that.

The employees working in remote areas are given a house allowance of 30 per cent of their basic pay, compared to 45 per cent given to employees who serve in cities. Most of such staffers remain in the remote areas for years and the department repeatedly receives applications from them for their transfers to cities.

Officials said tenure-based appointment on the pattern of the Civil Aviation Authority should be introduced to remove unrest among employees of the meteorological department.

The department does not offer conveyance allowance to its employees who can be transferred anywhere in Pakistan.

Recently, the federal government had adopted a policy of appointing local residents as observers, which had paid off.

The observers work round the clock and sometimes in freezing temperatures. About 300 observers working elsewhere in the country face similar problems. None of them gets technical and scientific allowances like employees of other such departments.

An observer is appointed in BPS-5. The federal government awarded BPS-7 and 9 to lower division clerks and upper division clerks, respectively, in this year’s budget.

Ministerial assistants with BA qualifications working in the federal capital were promoted to BPS-14 from 11 this year.

But Met department assistants have been working in BPS-12 despite having BSc qualifications and working for 15 years. They are promoted to the post of professional assistant (BPS-13) after 18 years of service.

Sources said 60 per cent of appointments on posts of BPS-16 or assistant meteorologists were made directly and 40 per cent of BPS-16 posts were reserved for those working already in the department.

Under rules, observers working in hard and hilly areas have to be transferred after one year but the rules are not followed and they continue to work there for ten years or even more.

The federal government allocates over Rs20 million to the regional meteorological office a year, a bulk of which is consumed by staff salaries and development work.

Thirty-two residential units have been established for the Peshawar office staff, which are not properly maintained.

Sources said employees were allowed official accommodation only in Peshawar, Lahore, Quetta, Karachi and Islamabad.

They said they had been requesting the Ministry of Defence, which heads the department, to provide a service structure to the employees, but to no avail.

They said provision of better facilities to employees would improve their performance.