LARKANA, June 5: The fate of 860 ad-hoc lecturers kept on regularization promise by the previous government hangs in the balance as they still wait for an order in this regard.The leaders of the Ad-hoc Lecturers Action Committee of the Sindh Professors and Lecturers Association, Zulfikar Kolachi, Mohammed Chhuttal Bozdar and others told journalists that they had sent an e-mail to PPP co-Chairman Asif Zardari with the request to regularize their jobs.

Mr Zardari in a communication had asked former senator Taj Haider to talk to education authorities and the Sindh Chief Minister for putting up the case of regularization, they said.

They held meeting with Mr Haider who contacted the chief minister and education minister of Sindh in the light of instructions from Asif Zardari and were promised early regularization, they said.

Mr Haider in a letter to Sindh education minister conveyed him the advice and instructions of the co-chairperson of PPP and said that 860 ad-hoc lecturers were working in different colleges in Sindh for several years.

The services of ad-hoc lecturers had been regularized in other provinces but former Sindh Chief Minister Dr Arbab Rahim delayed the case for they were appointed prior to his becoming the Chief Minister, they said.

The former leader of opposition had also moved a resolution in Sindh Assembly for their regularization and the then Sindh education minister had promised on the floor of the house to confirm them. But they were not regularized despite commitment, they said.

The tenure of their jobs was being renewed after every six months through a Sindh government notification, they said. But for last five months their salaries had been stopped as no fresh notification was issued by the government, they said.

They regretted that a summary for six-month extension notification was still lying with the Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah since two months for signature.

They said the Punjab government had on April 4, 2008 through a notification regularized 446 ad-hoc lecturers.

They called for their own regularizaiton and payment of pending salaries within a month otherwise they would widen their protest to provincial level.