PESHAWAR, Oct 10: The vice-chancellors of public sector universities of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Wednesday decided to increase salaries of the protesting employees by 20 per cent.
The decision to increase the salaries was taken in a meeting here chaired by Provincial Minister for Higher Education Qazi Asad. The meeting was also attended by Chief Secretary Ghulam Dastageer Akhtar and vice-chancellors of all public universities.
After having a successful meeting, the vice chancellors asked the protesting employees to call off the strike. However, the Federation of All Pakistan Universities Academic Staff Association (FAPUASA) and the associations of Class-III and IV employees have not yet decided to call off the strike on verbal assurance about raise in their salaries.
All government sector universities needed Rs1 billion for awarding 20 per cent increase in the salaries of their employees, sources said. It was decided that the provincial government would ask federal government to release the required funds, they said.
According to sources privy to the meeting, the vice-chancellors were of the view that they could give the proposed increased salaries just for two months from the universities resources. They said that during that period, the provincial government should manage more funds for the purpose.
If the universities were not given the needed funds after the increase, they would not be in a position to pay full salaries to employees, sources said.
The FAPUASA has convened a meeting in Islamia College University on Thursday to decide whether to continue the strike or call off it. The teachers association also welcomed the decision regarding increase in the salaries of the employees of public sector universities.
“We will not call off the strike until a notification is issued regarding increase in salaries,” said an office-bearer of FAPUASA.
Earlier in the day, the employees of the four major public sector universities in the provincial capital, protesting against the authorities for not increasing their salaries, locked the office of the vice-chancellor of University of Engineering and Technology (UET).
“Today we locked the office of UET vice-chancellor and tomorrow we will lock the office of Islamia College University (ICU) vice-chancellor,” said president of Peshawar University Teachers Association Jamil Ahmed.
He said that Class-IV and Class-III employees went on strike about two weeks ago and later teachers also joined them.
“We are going to get this 20 per cent raise since it is our right,” Joint Action Council (JAC) chairman Prof Hamayun Khan told the protesters at UET outside the vice-chancellor office. The Class-IV and Class-III employees had locked the office of the vice-chancellor of University of Peshawar (UoP) the other day.
The employees of UoP, Agricultural University, UET and ICU have been protesting for the last two weeks against the vice-chancellors of public sector universities for not materialising the government’s announcement, made about three months ago regarding 20 per cent raise in the salaries of employees.
The employees of the universities, irrespective of their pay-scale and designation, seem united to push the vice-chancellors to pay heed to their demand.
Iftikhar Ahmed, general secretary of the Class-III union of Agricultural University, said that so far the protest remained peaceful but they would be forced to use violenceif government and vice-chancellors didn’t pay attention to their demand. “The government and vice-chancellors would be responsible for the sequences,” he said and criticised the government for remaining silent on the issue.