The Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) employees have decided to file a petition in the Federal Services Tribunal (FST) against the management for not extending their due rights and entitled benefits. The disgruntled employees are planning to move the court against BISP chairman Senator Enver Baig (Retd) and federal government through the platform of All Pakistan BISP Employees Welfare Association.
There are around 2,000 employees of BISP who were regularised in 2013 by the previous PPP-led coalition government while about as many employees are working on deputation. Syed Sajid Hussain, President of the employees association, told Business Recorder on Saturday that all the employees were regularised in 2013 but they are not getting their entitled benefits.
"We are being discriminated against as the deputationists are enjoying all the benefits but the BISP employees are being denied of their due rights," he said. He said the government announced 10 percent ad hoc relief in budget 2014-15 for all the federal employees but the BISP employees are not being paid the allowance despite their protests. "All secretariat employees are granted 20 percent secretariat allowance while the BISP employees are being denied this allowance," he said, adding that if BISP employees are regularised why they are being denied their due rights!
Hussain said the deputationists were creating hurdles for them as they keep misguiding the chairman and other top BISP management. Over 1,500 employees are on deputation in BISP and it has yet to fulfil all its sanctioned vacancies through new recruitments. He said that the employees' welfare association has taken up all the issues with Chairman Enver Baig but there is no progress so far despite his assurances to resolve all the issues on a priority basis. "Enver Baig assured us in August this year that he would resolve all outstanding issues of employees in two months but nothing has been done so far," he said. He said Baig had even promised to resign from his position if he failed to resolve the problems of the employees within two months. Senator Baig could not be reached for comments.