After a long delay of nine years, a trade firm, which had supplied technical books to the Sindh Education Department in 2003, received the first installment of its pending dues of over Rs 3.2 million on Tuesday.
The payment was released to the company on the intervention of the ombudsman of Sindh province Asad Ashraf Malik, who on Tuesday handed Rs 0.443 million as a first tranche to the book suppliers against its claim stuck with the provincial government for many years.
According to details, M/s Naina Exporters and Importers had supplied technical books to different colleges as per agreement with the provincial education department in 2003.
The total payment of books supplied by the company was Rs 3.279 million. However, the payment was denied to the company by the department while the provincial government cited different reasons for the delay.
The company ultimately filed a complaint with the provincial ombudsman regarding the non-payment of dues by the department concerned.
After proper investigation the Sindh province ombudsman directed the department to arrange payment to the company who were deprived of their legitimate claim by the Sindh Technical Education and Vocational Training Authority (Stevta) in pursuance of the ombudsman’s directive assured the company of arranging payments from colleges who had received the books.
As a result, the first installment was paid to Kishore Kardaswani, a representative of the company, by the Sindh ombudsman in his office here on Tuesday. The company would receive the remaining dues in due course of time.
