GILGIT, Dec 5: The Northern Areas finance department has withheld payment of salary to more than 450 low-grade employees of the regional education department reportedly due to budgetary maladjustments.

Sources said that some employees had been recruited without considering budgetary allocations.

They said that the meetings were underway between officials of finance and education departments to thresh out the problem of payment of November’s salary to the employees.

The salary would be released after fixing the problems related to budgetary allocations in the education department.