Finally, PAL gets chairman

The government, after the lapse of eight months, has at last appointed former Pakistan Postal Services Chairman Abdul Hameed as the new chairman of Pakistan Academy of Letters (PAL). The seat of the PAL chairman remained vacant since July 25, 2011, after the termination of Fakhar Zaman’s contract.
The newly appointed chairman, Abdul Hameed, has taken the charge of his office. However, the chair of the director general has also been awaiting a new boss for the last eight months.
Abdul Hameed served as chairman and director general of Pakistan Postal Services, and has a vast experience in administration and financial disciplines.
In the absence of the chairman and DG, administrative work and literary activities remained halted in the academy for the last several eight months. Now responsibilities lie on the new chairman to restore literary activities in the country’s biggest literary organisation.
It is relevant to note here that deserving writers and poets have been suffering a lot for nonpayment of emergency funds from the PAL as only chairman has discretion to grant such funds to them. Writers and poets are also not being paid stipend against the publications of their books.
Delay in salaries of employees is a routine matter. Even during the last month, employees took to street against delay in their salaries. Now they hope that the new chairman will resolve their salary issue. The construction work of an auditorium on the premises of PAL named after Faiz Ahmed Faiz is also suffering as no one is there to follow the case before the government for the release of funds for auditorium. The construction work of the auditorium was started some three years ago, but it could not be completed so far and is facing shortage of funds and lack of support from the officials at the helm of the affairs. This state-of-the-art auditorium was scheduled to be completed in February 2011 to match the 100th birth anniversary of Faiz, but its construction was stopped in February 2009 for lack of interest on the part of the PAL administration and the federal government. Now responsibility lies on the shoulders of the new chairman to start its construction.