Some 150 pensioners and their families gathered at Walton Road and around 200 and their families at GT Road after they went to the National Bank of Pakistan branches at these locations only to find that their pension payments were not ready. They protested in front of the bank buildings and blocked the roads for around an hour, causing traffic jams on both.
“We have no other source of income,” said one protester of his family. “It’s already a small pension and it’s hard to manage on that amount. What am I supposed to do?”
Several protesters claimed that they had not been paid their pensions for four months. Some serving employees, complaining that they hadn’t been paid their salaries for the last few months, also joined the protest.
A PR spokesman said that the pensions had been delayed because of a technical hitch and were being paid now. He said that the cheques from the Finance Department were submitted to the bank on time, but the money was not transferred from the State Bank on time. “The pensioners are now getting their pensions,” he said. He said he was not aware that some pensioners had not been paid for four months. Haji Saeed Arain, the Railway Workers’ Federation general secretary, said that PR had no justification for delaying payments, since it was in a business where it received payments before providing its service. He blamed “official carelessness” for the decline of the railways.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 2nd, 2011.
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