HARIPUR, Oct 27: More than 1,600 employees of crisis-hit Telephone Industries of Pakistan (TIP) have not been paid salaries for the month of September even after the passage of 27 days, sources told Dawn here on Wednesday.
However, officials have blamed the finance division for making cut of over Rs300 million in the salary bill of the TIP.Sources in the finance section of TIP said that the salaries of over 1600 employees of TIP and its service units amounting to Rs23 million are paid by the end of each month but this time the management had not yet received funds from the Ministry of Information Technology, which was the parent organisation of TIP after the privatisation of PTCL.
The reason behind the delay, according to sources, was the delayed and unsatisfactory correspondence by the TIP management that had failed to take up the case with the finance division and ministry.
It was reported that the budget wing of the finance division had approved a sum of Rs634 million as the recurring cost in the budget 2010/11, which was earlier approved in the national budget for 2010/11 as indicative budget ceiling (IBC) 2010/13.
Source said that out of the total approved recurring cost, Rs127 million were allocated for arrears of the workers on account of due enhancement in the salaries since 2006, Rs285 million for annual salary budget and Rs60 million for the 50 per cent increase in salaries by the government.
However, following the flood disaster the government had decided to make a cut in the development and additional budgets by 40 per cent and the finance division reportedly directed the TIP to prepare the revised budget of Rs285 million on the patron of previous year, which included salaries, pensions and medical expenditure of TIP employees excluding the promised increase in salaries that was due since 2006.
Meanwhile, a source in the management while requesting anonymity told Dawn that the revised budget had been sent to the finance division and it was likely to be approved within in the next couple of days. It would facilitate the TIP in disbursing salaries to the workers, he said.
About the arrears, he said that the case would be taken up later.