ISLAMABAD: Teachers in the federal capital have not been paid their house rent allowance for the last many months.

For the fiscal year 2014-15, the federal government allocated Rs35 million for the teaching and non-teaching staff of middle schools and Rs180 million for the high schools.

However, despite repeated requests by the teachers, not a single penny was released in the first six months of the fiscal year.

It may be noted that due to the lack of official accommodation, the government pays a certain amount of allowance to its employees to hire private houses on rent.

The estate management wing of the FDE deals with the hiring of houses and payment of the rent to the owners on behalf of the teaching and non-teaching staff of the FDE.

“Across the globe, teachers are given due respect but it seems officers at the Federal Directorate of Education (FDE) are bent upon humiliating us, forcing us to beg loan from our relatives,” said Malik Amjad, a schoolteacher.

Mr Amjad said he had been waiting for the release of the house hiring allowance by the estate management wing of the FDE.

“I have not been paid the amount since December 2013. Whenever I visit the estate management wing, officials there mistreat me. Even they are not ready to tell me about the status of my case,” said Mr Javed, who teaches at the Islamabad Model School, G-7/4.

Though the federal govt has allocated funds under house rent for the current fiscal year, teachers have not seen a penny so far

Rahim Bux, another teacher, said his 15-month ceiling allowance had not been paid to him. “Every month I have to pay the rent from my salary which puts an extra burden on my monthly budget,” he said.

“Whenever I visit the estate management office, I find the officials concerned very rude. They behave as though they are paying our house rent from their own pockets,” said a female schoolteacher, who wished not be named.

Sources in the FDE said not only the teaching and non-teaching staff of schools were suffering but also employees of the FDE had become victims of the slow pace of work at the estate management wing. They said for the current fiscal year, the federal government had allocated Rs200 million for employees of the FDE but so far only Rs27 million had been released by estate management wing.

The sources said the director estate management and some of his team members had approved their own cases on a priority basis but were not paying heeds to the cases of the teachers.

When contacted, Director Estate Management Tanveer Ahmed claimed that his office was working efficiently. He also claimed that the cases of 90 per cent of teachers had been resolved.

When told that not even one per cent of the amount had been released for the teachers, the figure was not correct.

“I have almost cleared the cases of primary and secondary schoolteachers. If these files are facing any delay, it is not my fault as these are to be approved from the AGPR,” he added.

According to documents prepared by Mr Ahmed’s office on January 19, during the first six months of the fiscal years - from July to December 2014 - the estate management wing didn’t release any single penny for the schoolteachers. It said sufficient budget under the head of “rent and residential building” was still available with the department, which should be utilised.

When contacted, FDE Director General Aamir Khawaja said he would look into the matter. “I’ll look into the issue and would not tolerate any negligence,” he said.

Published in Dawn January 26th , 2015

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