SIALKOT: I would like to draw the attention of the authorities concerned, especially the ministry of information technology and telecommunication, towards the humanitarian issue that more than 40,000 telecom pensioners across Pakistan are facing.
These federal government pensioners, including 12,000 widows and orphans, have been living in miserable conditions for the last three years due to the fact that their pensions and medical allowances have not increased. An increase in pensions and medical allowances was announced in 2010-11, 2011-12 and again in 2012-13 by the government but the actual implementation of these announcements is still missing.
These people served the nation, as well as the government, all their lives but are now deprived of even their basic pensions not just the increases announced by the government. The Pakistan Telecommunication Employees Trust, working under the ministry of information technology and telecommunications is reluctant to grant these increases. The president, the prime minister and the chief justice are requested to take notice of this state of affairs.
Muhammad Tauqeer
Published in The Express Tribune, November 1st, 2012.
