THE plight of the retired employees of PIA is miserable as their pensions continue to be seriously low with which it is difficult to even manage baseline survival in these times of extraordinary inflation.

It was wrong on the part of the PIA management to calculate pensions on the basis of the basic salary instead of gross salaries. Further, in its circular issued on July 21, 2003, PIA had promised to increase pension along with increase in salaries for the existing employees.

The circular was never implemented properly.

Also, the management had assured restoration of the 50 per cent commuted amount of pensions to those completing 10 years of retirement, but even that assurance never got converted into action.

On behalf of all the retired employees of the airline, I appeal to the PIA bosses to do what they know needs to be done to sort out this genuine issue.

Mohammad Khan Sial,
Vice President, PIA Retired Employees Association
Karachi

Published in Dawn, March 19th, 2021