FAISALABAD: Water and Sanitation Agency (WASA) Faisalabad administration dismissed more than 700 worker charge employees from their jobs on the pretext of lack of funds and problems in revenue generation.

According to the notification issued by Director Admin WASA, Shoaib Rasheed, the tenure of all work charge employees has been terminated from August 31 and a strict warning has been issued to all directorates that whoever appoints work charge employees in the future will Strict departmental action will be taken against.

It should be noted that WASA Faisalabad currently has 980 Sanctioned approved vacancies and despite the passage of a decade, no recruitment has been done on these vacancies, and recruited more than 700 work charge on these vacant posts who are working at least Rs.991 per day wages as per the policy of Punjab Government and have been performing their duties well for the past several years. But yesterday, all 700 employees were dismissed from their jobs due to just a notification, which has left the hearths of more than 700 families cold.

The interesting thing here is that MD WASA Aamir Aziz took charge on 2nd August 2023 and within just 2 weeks he increased the FDA allowance from 50% to 100% for all regular employees whereas the Punjab government already annually In the budget, it has been approved to increase the salaries of employees by 35 percent.

Thus, on the one hand, the allowance of regular employees was increased by 100% while on the other hand; more than 700 employees were dismissed from their jobs through a notification on the pretext of lack of funds.

Similarly, inflationary work charge, daily wages employees were forced to live in very difficult conditions but now they have been fired due to which they have lost their job and how will they manage the wheel of life.

WASA Faisalabad is providing water supply and sewerage facilities to more than 3.7 million population of Faisalabad city which was possible only through the recruitment of work charge employees posted on vacant posts.

If these work-charge employees are dismissed by the WASA authorities, the department will face a severe shortage of technical manpower, which will greatly affect the sewerage system and the registration of complaints and their redressal. No one knows how it will be remedied.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023