ISLAMABAD, March 21: The state-run telephone company has no proposal under consideration to decrease the line rent or the local call charges to benefit the consumers while the taxpayers financed the exorbitant salaries of some of the consultants in Pakistan Telecommunication Corporation Limited (PTCL), record placed before the National Assembly on Monday revealed. Some of the retired civilian and armed forces officials, appointed as consultants in the PTCL after their retirement, were drawing salary packages more than that of the ministers and the parliamentarians.

The record placed before the house in response to a question by MNA Mian Muhammad Aslam showed that services of six officials were hired as consultants on lucrative packages after they had already reached the age of superannuation. However, the ministry did not give any reasons for appointment of the consultants on packages reaching even Rs300,000 per month even though the MNA had asked for the same.

According to details placed before the house, it was shown that the highest paid consultant in PTCL was Capt (retired) Zahir M Khan. Holding a BE Electrical Engineering degree, Mr Khan had been hired on a package of Rs300,000. The record showed that the officer had retired on January 1, 2005 and was re-employed on January 5, 2005 for a period of 3-6 months. The record did not explain why a definite contract period of either three or six months was not given as in other cases.

Following were the details of consultants and their salary packages in PTCL during the year ending December 2004 as placed before the National Assembly: Arshad Mahmud (Consultant Finance), Rs250,000; Muhammad Sarwar (Consultant Tech), Rs250,000; Brig (retired) M Amjad Idrees Mir (Consultant ER), Rs105,000; Capt (retired) Zahir M Khan (Consultant Tech) Rs300,000; Iftikhar Ahmed Raja (Consultant HR/Amin), Rs101,380; Brig (retired) M.H Kawish (Consultant I&I) Rs45,000;

In response to another question by MNA Laeeque Khan, the ministry of information technology and telecommunications said, “Presently there is no proposal by PTCL to decrease line rent and local call charges of telephone.”