HYDERABAD, Sept 14: Retired employees of government departments are facing difficulties in getting revised payment of difference in pension amount announced by the former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in 1997.

They accused the district accounts office staff of demanding illegal gratification to ensure payment of difference.

A large number of pensioners on Thursday demonstrated outside the Treasury Office for delay in payment. Employees including Khadija Begum, Ramzan Mallah, Kaleem Ansari and Abrari Begum complained that they were forced to pay illegal gratification and faced humiliation by the staff. They were forced to shunt between different sections of the Treasury for getting payment, they said.

Official sources said there was a great rush of pensioners in the Treasury Office to seek the revised payment of different amount of pension i.e., Rs300. According to the announcement the payment was to be made to those government employees who stood retired on July 1, 1997 in the country.

Sources said this decision was implemented in Punjab while pensioners continued to wait for payment in Sindh. Subsequently, they moved the apex court which ordered payment accordingly. However, it was then decided by the Accountant General that Rs300 raise would be given to those employees who retired until November 3, 2001 because in 2001 pay scale were revised and they got benefit of Rs300 in salaries.

Sources said that pension staff was under-staffed because at least 20 officials were required to deal with pensioners with only half a dozen available.

Most of the officials had retired or transferred to other districts. The sources also admitted the staff dealing in pension creates official hitches to grab money from them.

The sources said that because of benefit of Rs300 on an average each employee was getting Rs15,000 to Rs25,000 that’s why the Treasury staff was trying to ‘earn’ money from them on different grounds.

“For instance pensioners are told their files are not available and it will take time to find them for fixation of Rs300 pension”, said a source.

The pensioners were dealt by the ADO-III Abdul Hameed Sheikh who had recently been posted here and his attitude was said to be quite unfair. His predecessor, Muneer Ahmed Lashari also had attitude problem that’s why complaints of pensioners continued to increase.

According to required procedure a pensioner was required to submit his pension book between 25th and 30th day of every month along with proforma available with vendors in the Sessions Court premises. These books were returned to them along with pension payment from 1st to 5th of every month.

But since there was shortage of staff, pensioners continued to face problem. Since new fiscal year began two months back and increase in salaries was also being fixed, the Treasury staff was finding it hard to tackle it.

The ADO-III Abdul Hameed Sheikh while told Dawn that no such problem existed in his section.