LAHORE: All Government Employees Grand Alliance (AGEGA) on Thursday protested outside the Civil Secretariat against the government decision to cut salaries, pension, and gratuity and leave encashment. Protests were held in other major cities of Punjab as well.

The interim Punjab government had issued notifications for these cuts, prompting AGEGA activists to demand that Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz revoke them.

During the interim government’s period, a crackdown on protests led to the detention of many AGEGA leaders. They were taken to Jati Umrah for negotiations with Maryam Nawaz, who promised to revoke the notifications after coming into power.

Despite ending the initial protest, AGEGA leaders have continued to demonstrate outside the secretariat for the past few months to remind Maryam Nawaz of her promise.

The AGEGA leaders including Punjab Teachers Union President Rana Anwarul Haq, Rana Liaqat, Nadia Jamshaid, Saeed Namdar, Chaudhry Muhammad Ali, Mian Arshad, Tahir Islam, Mirza Tariq, Rana Khalid, Mustafa Wattoo and Ghafar Awan jointly issued the statement that all the public school and college teachers would boycott the classes from 11am to 1pm.

They said the government was trying to snatch every right of the employees and their families. They said pension was the right of the widows, orphans and old people but they were left alone.

They said that the bureaucracy was purchasing luxury vehicles and homes while ministers and politicians were given hefty salaries but the government wanted to cut the salaries, pension and gratuity and leave encashment of the employees.

They said all the educational institutes were being sold in the name of outsourcing and the teachers were facing the burden.

They said they would march from Nasser Bagh to Punjab Assembly on Jan 22 and demanded the government to take back cut in salary, pension and gratuity.

Published in Dawn, January 17th, 2025