SWABI, June 17: The public sector employees have rejected the raise announced by the federal and provincial governments in their salaries, saying the salaries should be increased according to price hike.

The provincial general secretary of All Government Employees Coordination Council (AGECC), Shaukat Ali Anjum, told journalists here on Monday that they were forced by the government to launch struggle for getting their rights.

The AGECC is conglomerate of about 18 different unions of the government employees in the province.

Flanked by other leaders of AGECC, Mr Anjum said that the 10 per cent increase announced by federal government and 15 per cent increase in salaries by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government in their respective budgets was nothing. The salaries of government employees should be increased according to the ratio of prices of essential commodities.

He said that the government should implement the recommendations of Pay and Pension Commission. He said that they decided in a meeting held Peshawar on Saturday to arrange protests in all districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on June 19.

“This will be beginning of the protest movement by the government employees, who have expressed readiness to continue their struggle for their rights against PML-N government, which shattered their dreams,” Mr Anjum said.

To a question, he said that they had planned to hold a protest meeting in Peshawar on June 21. “In the Peshawar meeting we would finalise the future line of action for marching on Islamabad,” he said.

Mr Anjum said that they would stage a sit-in outside the parliament in Islamabad on June 25. “Let the government utilise all its energies to stop the march of employees on Islamabad,” he said.

The AGECC leader said that they had contacted All Pakistan Clerk Association and All Pakistan Paramedics Association to initiate a joint struggle against the government.

“We have planned to contact all other registered unions and their leaders for chalking out a joint strategy to pressurise the government for increasing our salaries. We are trying to spread our message and further strengthen our bounds against the government that has made high claims but victimised the workers in its very first budget after winning the general elections,” he said.

The big problem was that the government failed to merge the 85 per cent ad hoc relief in the salary and it also refused to announce increase in the house rent and medical allowance, Mr Anjum said.