The Pakistan Railways Employee Union (Prem) has supported the constitution of a high level Judicial Commission to look into massive corruption in Pakistan Railways that has put PR on the verge of financial collapse. Talking to Business Recorder on Thursday Prem Union General Secretary Ishtiaq Asi recalled the time when PR was supporting the budget but massive corruption and nepotism had led it to near financial collapse.
"The root causes of downfall of PR are political interference and corruption," Ishtiaq added. He also rejected the government's plan to privatise PR saying that Prem would not allow the government to privatise this national entity at any cost. He demanded increment in salaries equal to 10 grams of gold, free medical treatment for railway employees' family and reinstatement of TA DA allowances, as the inflation rate is going up and it is the duty of the state to provide basic rights to employees.
He further said that Prem had handed over a 12-point demand document to chairman of Pakistan Railways. The demands include regularisation of staff and employment quota for children of railways employees, provision of advance from Gratuity and Provident Fund, recovery of five percent house rent deducted from salaries of employees, raise in travelling allowance of employees, waiver of all minor punishments imposed in the last five years on employees and promotion of office superintendents to BSP-16 Grade instead of BSP-14.
Ishtiaq said that poor Railways employees were facing problems due to meager salaries whereas their bosses were not paying heed towards the sorry state of the employees. Ishtiaq maintained that Prem tried negotiating with the PR administration but to no avail.
He said that the culture of rejection of merit in favour of political pressure will not be allowed to corrupt PR anymore and the union would do all it needed to stop this violation of merit. He further said that contract employees who had been working for five years or more should be immediately regularised.