RAWALPINDI, April 28: An alliance of lecturers and professors has asked the government to restore house rent allowance to the teachers working in BPS-17.

Ittehad-i-Assataza Pakistan president Prof Zulfiqar Haider Malik said: “The rent of even an ordinary house is more than Rs4,000 and instead of making an increase in this allowance, the government froze the meagre house rent of Rs1,291 in 1994 which has not been paid since then.”

He said successive governments had not bothered to resolve the issue which put the lecturers in great financial trouble. According to service rules, all the teachers in BPS-17 were entitled to 45 per cent house rent in cities and 30 per cent in rural areas, he added.

Mr Malik asked the government to restore the house rent and besides an appropriate raise in its amount to enable the teachers to cope with the recurrent price-hike.