Another group of government employees started protest on non-payment of salaries as around 70 employees of the Punjab Public Library are starting their strike from today (Thursday). Employees complain that the budgetary salary raise was not transferred to them, which had caused serious financial problems for them. Thousands of citizens were members of one of the oldest libraries of Punjab, who would suffer due to the strike for an indefinite period. Employees have been on symbolic strike for the last three days. They are going to offices with black arm bands to register their protest.
Employees said that the 50 percent budgetary salary raise in 2010 was not given to them since July and they were even deprived of the 15 percent budgetary salary increase of this year’s budget. Employee of the library Nusrat Ali Seer told Pakistan Today that since 2009, the library was under administrative control of the Punjab Education Department, which had ruined the operation of the library. He said that the library was registered under the Societies Registration Act 1860 but was run contrary to its act. Nusrat said that the Punjab Government had now constituted the board of governors of the Punjab Public Library, Lahore, under the Punjab Government Educational and Training Institutions Ordinance 1860. The board of governors includes the Punjab chief secretary, school education secretary, finance, information and higher education department and other senior educationists. He said that according to the Societies Registration Act, the board of governors could not administer the library.
Citizens also asked the officials concerned to solve the issues amicably, as the library, which also a historical significance, as it began operations in the Baradari Wazir Khan, an imperial building of great historical importance built by Nawab Wazir Khan, the governor of Lahore, during Emperor Shahjahan’s reign with the assistance of the Punjab government. “We had several meetings with the administration, including the secretaries of the concerned departments but all went in vain”, an employee said. He said that the administration was not serious in addressing their problems as the budgetary salary increment could be witnessed in each and every department of the government but unfortunately the situation had changed in their case.
