MANSEHRA: The secretaries of different union councils in Mansehra continued their strike on fourth consecutive day on Sunday.

The secretaries of 59 union councils in the district had gone on strike on Thursday to demand up-gradation of their basic pay scale to 12 from the existing 6.

The local people said that offices of union councils were closed in the district and they faced problems in registration of their children or getting birth certificate, which was must for getting National Computerised Identity Card.

The protesting secretaries have threatened that they would not allow the newly elected local government representatives to assume offices in the district if their demands are not met.

POOR WOMEN: The local beneficiaries of Benazir Income Support Programme face difficulties in withdrawing money from ATMs in the sizzling heat and Ramazan as most of the banks are not included in the cashing service link of the programme while link of others remains down most of the time.

“You can see a rush of women and those men, who have debit cards of their women relatives, at this ATM but it is not working. We are being disgraced while sitting outside the bank on ground,” a woman told journalists outside a bank.

She said that it was a routine matter as they faced the same dilemma whenever the quarterly installment was transferred into their bank accounts.

“Thanks to PML-N government which increased the monthly financial assistance from Rs1,000 to Rs 15,000 but it could also not address the issue of disbursement of money among the women beneficiaries,” she added. Yar Mohammad, a man who was holding BISP card of his wife, said when money of financial assistance was transferred into bank accounts of the beneficiaries, they rushed to the ATM and as a result the machines went out of order.

Published in Dawn, June 29th, 2015

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