LAHORE – Two veterinarian officers, who work at the Lahore Zoo, have demanded that they be regularized like all other officers of the Zoo management. Dr Saman Bhatti and Dr Zeb Mahal told Pakistan Today that they have been under a lot of constant stress thanks to work load without much help and their salary packages and promotions have suffered because they were not regularised along with rest of the staff. “It is strange as to why we were the only ones left on contract, even though we have been working since years now,” says Dr Bhatti.
She said that they had a low salary, no concept of promotion, and too much work load, which meant working overtime, on holidays and even sometimes returning at night for emergency calls. “We tried to discuss this issue several times, but the Punjab Wildlife Department authorities have not come up with any solution for us,” she said. “If an employee is not made permanent there is no way any promotion can take place and we are the only two contractual employees at the Zoo. In fact we have heard that the response from the authorities has been ‘if they are given permanence, they will leave for better opportunities’,” Dr Bhatti said.
At present, Dr Bhatti and Dr Mahal are in BPS-17, with a salary of just above Rs 30,000. No fuel or transport facilities are available for use, and no overtime money is given. “We have to return at night if an animal is sick, and this happens often, because being jungle animals, they fall sick regularly as they are confined in a cage,” says Dr Bhatti. “For this we have to arrange our own transport. We have not been given any car or transport. Even then we do not make a fuss and come to work on time,” she says.
The vet officers also complained that they have 25 holidays in one year but they hardly avail these leaves, yet even then they receive no motivation for this. “We discussed it with the Zoo Board, but no results have come up. There have been no answers from the DG Wildlife, it seems as if they are not interested in us.” Even in the Punjab Livestock Department, the vets say, the employees have been regularised. One other zoo officer had to leave, say the vet officers, because she did not receive any job permanence.
“People are leaving because of this problem, and they work with great unease, because they don’t know if they will be coming tomorrow to work or not, as they don’t have any job security,” says Dr Mahal. “How are we supposed to work like this?” she asks. The problem has arisen since two years when orders were passed by the CM that government employees will only be regularised up to BPS-15. Employees of BPS- 16 and 17, therefore, are not made regular, for reasons no one is aware of. The Zoo director need not worry about his position in the zoo, because in BPS-18, he is already a Wildlife Department officer and transferred from the department to the zoo directly.
