ISLAMABAD: Cheques issued to 250 postgraduate trainees (PGs) and house officers (HOs) at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) as stipends for June have bounced due to unavailability of funds.

The trainees are worried that if the Pims management failed to arrange the funds by Tuesday, they may not get the stipends before Eidul Fitr. The trainees have also announced their decision to hold a protest demonstration on Tuesday. However, the management of Pims said that the funds for the stipends would be arranged soon.

In February 2013, the National Assembly passed the Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto Medical University (Pims) Islamabad Bill which was moved by the then minister for Capital Administration and Development Nazar Mohammad Gondal.With the passage of the bill, Pims was upgraded to a medical university and empowered to confer degrees, diplomas and certificates. On February 11, 2014, the Quaid-i-Azam University formally handed over the affiliation of health institutions to Pims. However, the employees expressed concerns that Pims would suffer financially after getting the university status.

Talking to Dawn on Sunday, President Young Doctors Association (YDA) Dr Farooq Shah said though the government employees would get salaries for the current month by July 25, PGs and HOs were still trying to get the stipends for June.

“PGs are paid Rs50,000 and HOs Rs25,000 monthly stipend as they also work in the hospital.

Almost 50 per cent of the PGs and HOs are married so they are worried that if they did not get the stipends they and their families will not be able to celebrate Eid,” he said.

“Since the start of the new financial year, the trainees have been running from pillar to post to get the stipends. We had meetings with the management of Pims and also visited the office of the Accountant General of Pakistan Revenue (AGPR) many times,” he said.

“Last week, the management issued cheques to around 250 trainees. But when the cheques were deposited in the accounts of the trainees, they bounced. The bank also imposed a fine of Rs400 on each cheque,” he said.

Dr Shah said the Pims management had been giving dates from the start of July for the clearance of the stipends but so far the issue could not be resolved. If the funds are not transferred by Tuesday, the trainees will hold protest in front of the vice chancellor office.

“We will also stop working if the stipends are not paid,” Dr Shah added.

When contacted, Pims Vice Chancellor Dr Javed Akram told Dawn that he had been trying to resolve the issue and hopefully the funds for the stipends would be transferred to the bank by Tuesday.

“I am in touch with the AGPR to resolve the issue. There was some complication in the computer system of AGPR due to which the funds could not be transferred to Pims.

Hopefully, the problem would be resolved by Tuesday,” he said.

Published in Dawn, July 21st, 2014