Three years have passed since the administrative control of 118 Commerce Colleges was shifted from the Technical Education and Vocational Training Authority to the Higher Education Department. However, the Punjab Government has been unable to resolve problems being faced by the 866 contractual employees working at these colleges.

This year these employees have not been paid their salaries. Class-four employees at the colleges are being paid salaries of below Rs10,000, which is a violation the provincial government’s own notification on minimum wage. Moreover, contractual employees have not received increments on their salaries during the last three years.

Waseem Ahmed, a lecturer at the Government Commerce College Murree is among those employees who have been waiting to receive their salaries since January 2015.

“I have been working as a contractual employee for the last 11 years. Earlier, we worked under Tevta, but in 2012 the Punjab government shifted administrative control of our colleges to HED. However, no decision was made about our future,” he said.

He said they work at HED run colleges but recieve salaries from Tevta, which stopped paying them in January 2015.

Another lecturer, Faisal Shahzad, said in 2012 when the administrative control of the colleges was handed over to Tevta, it was announced that employees working on contractual basis will be treated under contract policy 2004.

Lecturers working at Commerce Colleges in Rawalpindi, on a contractual basis, told Dawn that on Tuesday, they mailed an application to the Supreme Court of Pakistan, requesting the apex court to intervene in the matter.

In the application, which is available with Dawn, the lecturers told the apex court that a majority of them have been working on a contract basis for the last 11 years. The government has failed to figure out a mechanism for their salaries to be paid.

They told the court that the government has not increased their salaries during the last three years and they have also not been given allowances such as conveyance, medical and house allowances.

Additionally, they said that the Punjab government which announced last year that minimum wage would be Rs12,000 but is paying its own class-four employees less than Rs10,000.

Twenty-six year old Muhammad Nadeem is a peon at the Government Commerce College Murree, he told Dawn“I am supposed to receive Rs8000 as salary. However, in the current year I have not been paid a single penny.”

Nadeem is the sole bread-winner for his family and said that he has been taking loans from relatives to pay for his family’s daily expenses.

Muhammad Shanazar, who is the officer in charge of the commerce wing at the education department in Rawalpindi, said Tevta deals with salary related issues of contractual employees.

“I know these employees have not been paid their salaries. According to my information, the provincial government is trying to formulate a policy to permanently resolve this issue,” he said.

Published in Dawn March 13th, 2015

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