LAHORE, April 4: The governor has ordered the education department to submit a summary on the issue of granting new pay scales to employees of all the eight boards of intermediate and secondary education in the province.

The governor has reportedly asked the education department to explain the boards’ income and expenditures separately. He has also called for details of the financial impact on respective boards if the new pay scales and allowances are allowed to the employees.

The board employees have been demanding that they should be given raise in their salaries according to the new pay scales as announced by the federal government in the budget for the current fiscal year.

The government, however, has offered them to either opt for the old scales and allowances or only enhanced salary under the revised scales.

It is learnt that Lahore BISE chairman Prof Dr Shafqat Husain Chaudhry had sent a proposal to the education secretary to allow new pay scales and allowances. He had also held a board meeting on Feb 25 and approved the issue with his casting vote and sent the proposal to the education secretary very next day.

Though the Lahore board had given its consent to allow new pay scales and allowances, the finance department had later made an observation that the proposal was not only a departure from the Basic Pay Scales Package but also a violation of Section 10(4) of the Punjab Boards of Intermediate and Secondary Education Act, 1976. The section of the act says: “Except where the controlling authority directs otherwise, a board shall not make any rules or allow any concession, benefit, privilege or allowance to pay person which is not in conformity with the rules enforced by the government on similar matters”.

Since the proposal was not in conformity with the rules enforced by the government on similar matters, the finance department said the board was not competent to approve the same as such for which clear written orders of the controlling authority would be required.

The finance department also said the scheme of the Revised Pay Scales, 2001, should be adopted in its totality. “By adopting these scales, the employees will have to opt for the allowances at the rates admissible to their counter-part civil servants of the Punjab government. It is not open to the board to allow Revised Basic Pay Scales Schemes of the provincial government to its employees and allow compensatory allowances at rates different from those sanctioned by the government,” the department observed.

The finance department said the employees of the board could either adopt/accept the new scheme in toto or they could retain their old pay and allowances if they considered them more beneficial.

It also said the offer of the Revised Pay Scale, 2001, was fresh one, which should not be linked with the previous practice.