ISLAMABAD: Regular employees of the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) have started a pen-down strike across the country due to the disparity in pay scale, Pakistan Today has learnt.
Officials told this scribe that there are two pay scales in one organisation; one is for deputationists and the second is for regular employees. Deputationists are getting handsome salary packages whereas regular employees’ salaries have not been revised for many years, officials stated.
They said that the regular employees of the department had asked the high-ups to finalise the service regulations. Although the incumbent BISP secretary had started working on this matter, the service regulations are yet be finalised. The BISP board took up the matter in its Monday meeting but the matter was once again sent to Finance Regulations Wing for further review, officials added.
They claimed that the management had increased the salary of deputationists by up to 62.5 per cent (Rs7.2 million per month) in this year without the board’s approval and also received Rs72 million arrears in April. Presently, there are 376 deputationists working at BISP and some of them are involved in the decision-making process as well.
A deputationist told this scribe that deputationists have their own issues, with one group wanting to get the status of regular employees while the other one wants to continue with the same status because of handsome salary packages. Currently, 1,694 regular employees are working in different offices of BISP.
It is pertinent to mention here that civil servants opt to go to BISP and other organisations just to get a handsome salary package. The incumbent Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government is working on civil service reforms and the bureaucracy is expecting the government to revise their salary package.
A BISP spokesperson said that the board, during its 29th meeting, had approved an increase in salaries of deputationists.
