LAHORE, Aug 3 : As many as 10 retired employees of the Pakistan Industrial and Technical Assistance Centre await payment of pension and other dues for the last one-and-a-half year.

PITAC Labour Union President Syed Afzal Hussain Zanjani and Secretary-General Chaudhry Muhammad Aslam said that the families of the retired employees were in dire financial straits due to non-payment of their dues.

Funds for the purpose were to be provided by the federal government as PITAC had lacked resources to pay Rs3.7 million to the retired employees, one of whom was disabled.

The union leaders said that the federal government was not only denying funds for payment of dues to the retired employees but had also provided insufficient resources for meeting PITAC expenditure for six months.

The amount released for meeting six months expenditure was 40 per cent of the annual budget instead of 50 per cent.

The said that the PITAC employees were also being denied payment of overtime despite the fact that the funds for the purpose had to be provided by the industrialists availing PITAC technical assistance.

Drivers in PITAC were not being paid overtime despite the fact that drivers in other government organizations continued to be paid.

They also demanded restoration of the technical and research allowance of PITAC employees. They said the restoration of the allowance had become overdue in the wake of a Supreme Court judgment in respect of restoration of the allowance.

They also demanded lifting of ban on recruitment in PITAC as only 222 people were working against 322 posts after abolition of 105.

They appealed to Federal Production Minister Liaquat Jatoi to come to the rescue of PITAC and order release of funds for payment of the dues of the retired employees and technical allowance and overtime to the in-service employees.