Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC) has reportedly stopped giving gratuity funds to its retired employees. According to sources in the Company, dozens of retired employees, who have spent their entire life in the company are facing great financial hardships after the new management discontinued these of funds for the last two months.
They said that the treasury department of KESC was reluctant to release the fund on the oft-repeated pretext of financial crunch being faced by the new management. "There is no reason to withhold the gratuity fund which is our fundamental right. The delay is purely due to the anti-employees attitude of the management," one retired employees told Business Recorder.
Another setback the employees were facing was that the management was also showing reluctance to issue them the provident fund, which is usually released after retirement, they alleged. According to the company's rule its employees can take 60 percent of the total provident fund during the service, but after the current decision of the management the employees were even deprived of their own money.
The new management on the one hand is providing high salaries and other privileges to its newly inducted officials and on the other hand it is curtailing the basic facilities of its general employees, they added. It may be mentioned here that the engineers in the company having experiences of 20 to 25 years had left the company due to the salary disparities created by the new management.