PESHAWAR: About 22 revenue staffers of the Gomal Zam dam project based in the Tank and DI Khan districts are without salaries for the past over two years due to the negligence and apathy of government departments.

Various departments involved in the process have been shifting responsibility over the matter while there have been countless meetings, correspondence and promises to assure the employees of payment of their salaries.

Giving details, one of the daily wage employees said that they had not been paid their salaries since Aug 2015. He said that they were hired earlier in 2004 as daily wagers on contract basis for revenue work in both the districts.

He said that Wapda was paying the costs of land acquisition, security and their salaries till Aug 2015. However, he said that when the provincial irrigation department took over the payment of project expenses, their salaries were stopped.

He said that they had repeatedly urged the officials concerned to pay their salaries, but there seemed to be little chances of that as none of the Wapda, district administration and irrigation department was showing readiness to pay their salaries.

An official familiar with the matter told this scribe that Wapda was releasing money under three heads, including land acquisition, security and staff salaries.

He said that after taking over the payment the irrigation department started paying for the land acquisition and security, but did not pay the employees’ salaries.

He said that the creation of a salary head by the irrigation department could resolve this issue.

An official of the irrigation department blamed Wapda for the woes of these employees and said that it should start giving them salaries.

The official said that unless all the relevant departments were brought to the table the issue was unlikely to be resolved.

Published in Dawn, September 20th, 2017