KARACHI, Nov 10: Employees of the defunct Karachi Development Authority on Monday resorted to violence at the City Nazim’s secretariat, Civic Centre, while protesting against delay in payment of their salaries, for which they blamed the city government.

The protesters hurled chairs, bottles garbage and inflammable material at the city Nazim’s secretariat.

All work at the city government offices, situated at first floor of the Civic Centre, came to standstill after protesting employees created uproar and started raising slogans against the City Nazim Naimatullah Khan for delay in payment of their salaries.

The employees gathered at the lobbies of different floors and from there started throwing old furniture, garbage, even some inflammable material, at the first floor, where Nazim’s Secretariat was situated.

The protest was initiated by mostly lower staff, who first chanted slogans, like “Down with City Nazim,” “Pay Salaries to KDA employees,” but later on they turned violent.

City Nazim’s office was presenting a messy look as heap of garbage with broken chairs and bottles accumulated in front of it.

Fire also broke out when some inflammable material was thrown on the heap of garbage allegedly from top floor, but was extinguished without causing any damage to the offices.

The Rangers and police were called to control the situation, who arrested three employees, a driver of Transport & Communication Department, named by the Nazim, and two sweepers, who were later released.

However, the protesters were dispersed by the law enforcing agencies.

Today’s protest of defunct KDA employees was an outcome of their anger over the treatment meted out to them by the city government for the last two years after its inception and merger of KDA in it in 2001, an official of the CDGK remarked.

He said despite devolving of KDA’s assets worth billion of rupees, besides property of defunct authority, located in different city parts, the city government was not ready to accept its liabilities, including its employees, who were facing immense hardships due to this lack of concern on city government’s part.

An amount of approximately Rs40 million per month for these employees was not being provided by the CDGK on regular basis, he added.

He informed that a number of complaints had been forwarded in this regard, however, the matter was still lingering on despite the formation of a committee by the city government, one and a half years ago, which suggested a number of proposals regarding revenue generation for the city government under the head of defunct KDA, including charging for change of land utilization fee, obtained from those who had converted their residential units into commercial places, but unfortunately these proposals were yet to be implemented.

Mainly, the employees of four departments of defunct KDA, the Traffic Engineering Bureau (TEB), Master Planning department, Design Bureau and Mass Transit Program (KMTP), were victims of this organizational dispute, he said.

The reason for delay in payment of salaries to the employees of these four departments was that the Karachi Building Control Authority, which was responsible for the payment under an act enforced in 1985, refused to pay the salaries to these department two years ago, causing hardships for them.

The official pointed out that the worst-hit were the employees of defunct TEB, as their GP fund and pensions were also not being paid.—PPI