THE one-upmanship of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government is having its toll on its low-paid employees. The KP government had fixed a higher minimum wage of Rs15,000 in 2014, when it was fixed at Rs12,000 with effect from July, 2014 in the other three provinces. It was fixed unilaterally by the KP government without forming and consulting the Minimum Wage Board. On a petition by the employers, this notification was suspended by the Peshawar High Court in March, 2015.

A new notification declaring Rs12,000 as the minimum wage for unskilled workers was issued by the KP government in September 2015 which was effective from July 2014. Before this, the minimum wage was increased from Rs8,000 to Rs10,000 a month effective July 1, 2013, in all the four provinces, including KP. It implies that the unskilled workers in KP continued to get the salary of Rs 10,000 a month till September 2015 while their counterparts in the other provinces were drawing a salary of Rs12,000 a month.

I wonder how many employers in KP would have paid the arrears of Rs2,000/ a mont, i.e. the difference between Rs10,000 and Rs12,000 from July 2014 to August 2015 (a total of Rs28,000 for 14 months).

The KP government again issued a minimum wage notification in January 2016 declaring the minimum wage as Rs13,000 a month with effect from July 2015. While announcing the KP budget (2016-17) on June 14 its finance minister has raised the minimum wage rate for unskilled workers from Rs13,000 to Rs14,000 a month, with effect from July 1.

It is unfortunate that while workers of industrial and commercial establishments were being deprived of their due amount of wage as fixed in other provinces, the political leadership of KP is engaged in holding sit-ins at Islamabad to achieve its own interests.

Parvez Rahim

Karachi

Published in Dawn October 25th, 2016