FAISALABAD, March 19: The next of kin of civil servants, who died with their boots on, have been running from pillar to post for months for the compensation amount approved by the provincial government.

Salma Bibi, a sanitary worker of the union council No 183, had died due to cardiac arrest during duty on Jan 2 this year. The death of Salma brought a sad episode for her family. Shehzad, the deceased’s son, already suffering from a serious disease, was admitted to a local hospital some few days back.

Largely depending on the earning of the deceased, the family is now facing a financial crunch particularly after the indisposition of Shehzad.

Arseen, husband of Salma, is a cart pusher and hardly earns enough to feed the family. To meet the expenditure of his son’s treatment, he filed the compensation case.

Officials of the solid waste management and revenue department also approved the immediate compensation to the needy family, but the funds were not released.

The provincial government had issued a letter on Nov 10, 2004, regarding the financial assistance to the family of a civil servant. It was decided that the family of the expired servant (scale one) would be given Rs200,000. The law also suggests that the compensation amount should be disbursed to the needy family before the burial of the deceased worker.

Sources said that families of the deceased workers had become a shuttlecock between offices of the government departments. Poor families approached the district accounts office for the death grant but only to hear that the concerned account No A-5216 was empty. All requests made for the grant had been turned down, they said.

The district government had mistakenly not earmarked the amount which would now be featured in the revised budget, some of the district government officials were quoted as saying.

Mazdoor Ittehad Union secretary-general Nazir Inayat said that 12 families of deceased workers were yet to be compensated. He said the district government had assured the compensation in the coming budget.

He said a request had been made for the immediate compensation to the family of Salma as her son was under treatment in the hospital, but nothing had come so far.

District accounts officer Muhammad Akhtar blamed the district government for not allocating funds in this regard.