PESHAWAR: The employees of National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) here continued their token hunger strike for the third consecutive day on Thursday to press for acceptance of their demands, including service structure, promotion and increase in salaries and allowances.

Speaking at a press conference at Peshawar Press Club, the Nadra Employees Union’s central general secretary Gohar Ayub Marwat said that the employees had been deprived of promotion and allowances and its main reason was the absence of service structure. He said that the workers were not given allowances since creation of the institution.

Expressing his anger over the government’s apathy to increase their salaries, he said despite the growing inflation, a computer operator in Nadra was being given only Rs7, 000 salary a month.

He claimed that most of the Nadra employees had been working in BSP-5 for last three decades, while they were not considered workers of the institution. He claimed that according to the management the old employees had become useless because they lacked computer proficiency.

He said that discrimination had been carried out in provision of fast track allowance, as low grade employees were given between Rs200 and Rs300, while BSP-17 and BSP-18 officers had been getting between Rs20,000 and Rs40,000 under the same allowance facility.

Flanked by the union’s central president Saleem Sherpao, KP chapter president Azmat Qadafi and scores of employees, Mr Marwat alleged that the high officials of Nadra had been lavishly spending funds on their foreign trips and other luxuries. He said that except internal audit no audit of expenditure and income of Nadra had been carried so far. He said that appointments had been made on political grounds during previous Pakistan Peoples Party government. “We demand that we should be considered federal employees and given basic pay scales,” Mr Marwat said.

Published in Dawn, February 6th, 2015

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