March 02, 2008	Sunday	Safar 23, 1429

MUZAFFARGARH, March 1: Teachers and staffers of the education department serving in Kot Adu tehsil have protested the indifference of officials concerned for not paying them full salary for the month of January 2008 despite the passage of over one month.

The staffers of the education department were being paid wages through manually operated billing process. However, they were told that from January 2008 they would be paid through National Bank of Pakistan’s Kot Addu Branch.

When they reached the bank to withdraw the salary for the month of January on or after Feb 1, many were left stunned after finding that their full wages had not been transferred to their accounts. In some cases, 50 per cent and in some cases even less than 50 per cent wages were transferred. Bank officials told them that this was a fault on part of the officials of district accounts office.

Over 200 woman teachers protested on Friday for not receiving their full salary.

The officials have admitted the perturbed situation terming it an error encountered during switching over to automated billing process. They said the error would be rectified soon and advised the staffers to submit bills of their due arrears manually so that they should be reimbursed.

Education EDO Sultan Bhagaila assured that the staffers would be compensated soon.

DCO Dr Akhtar Nazeer Warraich said that he would take action against the responsible. He also chaired a meeting of the officials of education and accounts office on Saturday to identify ways means to fix the problem at the earliest.