KARACHI: The permanent staff of the Karachi Race Club (KRC) has demanded of the management to give at least 10 percent increment in their salaries besides fixation of minimum salaries at Rs12,000 as they are facing hardships to make ends meet.

“It’s almost four years now, January 2011 to be exact, that we last received the 10 percent raise in our salaries,” the employees said in a signed written statement submitted o the managing committee a copy of which is available with Dawn.

The dejected employees recalled that they used to get 10 percent raise in their salaries annually, a regular practice since long that has been done away since 2011.

Spread over an sprawling 245.1 acres, the strength of permanent KRC employees has been drastically reduced to 57 following a layoff to some 150 employees since 2008 aimed to overcome financial constraints. Strangely, most of the staffers are heavily underpaid.

Statistics show that monthly expenses of the current salaries comes to 5,63, 517. Another agony is that while the government has fixed minimum wages at Rs12,000, a number of KRC staffers are getting between Rs6,050 to Rs9,520. The 10 per cent enhance in the salaries of 11 staffers who are above the government ceiling and fixation of minimum salaries at Rs12,000 will put an additional monthly burden of Rs2,19,064 on the KRC.

“Believe it I’m getting little over Rs12,000 with over 25 years of service to my credit,” an old hand who is associated with the equine sport from the old Racecourse told Dawn on anonymity.

He added that neither there’s provident fund nor gratuity which adds further frustration to the employees. The bonus on Eid-ul-Fitr and Eid-ul-Azha has been curtailed to half of the basic salary apiece since last year, he said in dejection.

Due to alarming price hike, most of the lower staffers try their luck in the betting ring every weekend on racing days by taking salary advance.

Published in Dawn, October 22nd, 2014