PESHAWAR, April 14: The NWFP Paramedical Association has decided to launch a protest campaign from April 24, throughout the province to press the government to announce a service structure for them. Sirajuddin Burki, provincial association president, said this at a general body meeting held here at the Lady Reading Hospital (LRH) on Thursday.

He said the approval of the service structure would cost the government an additional amount of Rs19 million annually and benefit over 10,000 paramedics working in different health outlets in the NWFP and Fata.

“The long-awaited paramedics’ service structure was discussed at the cabinet meeting on Dec 20, 2004. The cabinet formed a sub-committee under the senior minister to look into the matter and decided that the committee’s decision would be final and there would be no need to place it before the cabinet again,” said sources.

The sub-committee in its meeting on Dec 23 under Senior Minister Sirajul Haq gave approval to the new service structure. The summary had been approved by the health minister and now was lying on the table of the chief minister, he said.

According to him, general body meetings had been planned at the Hayatabad Medical Complex (HMC), Khyber Teaching Hospital (KTH) and Khyber Medical College (KMC) on April 16, 19 and 21, respectively, that would be followed by protest demonstration from April 24.

Mr Burki said that most of the staff was appointed in grade 6 and retired in the same grade even after serving for 25 years.

He said the proposed service structure divided staff into 54 different disciplines, which had been grouped in 14 categories.

According to the proposed formula, 80 per cent or 6,944 of the total number of paramedics would move to BPS-9, 12 per cent or 1,042 to BPS-12, 3.5 per cent or 314 to BPS-14, 2.5 per cent or 216 to BPS-16, 1.09 per cent or 161 to BPS-17, 0.09 per cent or eight to BPS-18, 0.04 per cent or three to BPS-19 and 0.01 per cent or one to BPS-20.

The provincial government, which was paying slightly over Rs44.9 million in salaries to the paramedics every year, would be spending a little over Rs46 million, he said, adding that they had already postponed their strike a few months ago after assurances by the government about the approval of their service structure.