While the long-awaited work on three transport related mega projects in Karachi has started after receiving green signal from the President, the city government is yet to regularise the employees in Karachi Mass Transit Cell (KMTC) with 18 years service.
Most of these workers have been doing the job since 1993 with the hope that they would be regularised soon after seeing their performance but after around 18 years service they remain daily wagers.
Talking to Business Recorder on Wednesday some employees of KMTC of City District Government Karachi (CDGK) said that they were hired as Research Students Assistants (RSA) by the cell for study of mega projects. "For the last three years, we are receiving only Rs 6000 per month. Before that, it was Rs 3000. Besides, there is no wage earning for Sundays and other holidays," they said.
Interestingly, these workers said they were doing the jobs related to accounts and administration, which are purely the job of BS-14 to 16 of officers, with the same wages. "Though we serve the government as much as the regular employees, we have no insurance, medical or other facilities offered by CDGK," said an employee who was doing the job in accounts section of the cell. Another employee, who was given the job after his father's retirement, said he was also doing the job as daily wager despite the fact that the seat was vacant.
"As we are all married, and have families, we can not afford losing our jobs," another employee said, adding that he had served the cell for 15 years, in acute uncertainty. He said, "As we have spent most important part of our life in KMTC, we can not go anywhere to search a new job, if the government deprives us of the existing one".
He alleged that there were already vacancies in KMTC but high-ups in the CDGK were keeping deaf ear regarding the issue despite several applications and files submitted to them. After being rejected several times, these employees had again submitted their documents in the Human Resource Management (HRM) department of City Government, but no sign of acceptance has been shown to them for the last two months.
President Asif Ali Zardari, in his recent visit to Karachi had approved the mega projects to be started to solve the traffic problems in the over populated city. These include Light Rail Transit System, CNG Buses, and Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS).
These projects have been studied and supervised by KMTC, which had started the study in 1987 and finalised its PC-1. According to sources in KMTC, after the approval of the projects by the federal government, more staff was needed to handle the projects. To carry out the projects the grievances of the employees were needed to be removed on priority bases.
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