KESC meal ticket: Golden handshake for 290 ex-officers

KESC tries to help former employees despite union unrest.

KARACHI:

The Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC) has developed a Golden Handshake Package for the 290 officers who were terminated from their jobs in 2009, said a KESC statement on Friday.

The former KESC employees were advised to contact the human resources department in the coming week regarding the matter. The statement claimed that many non-core employees appeared to be willing to accept the Voluntary Separation Scheme and submitted their forms.

KESC claims that employees who have accepted the scheme will be paid Rs750, 000 to Rs4.7 million as per their services and cadres. “So far, over 2,000 employees have accepted the scheme.”

However, KESC claims that as the employees headed towards the Human Resources Department, they were manhandled by former union workers in an effort to block them.

“A group of people led by the union’s joint secretary Aziz-ur-Rehman snatched the Voluntary Separation Scheme forms from the employees as they headed to submit the papers,” said a KESC statement. “The harassment and attacks continued all day while some activists chased KESC employees on their motorbikes.”

The union strikes back?

According to the KESC, union workers also attacked a maintenance team from Region-II which is located near the Artillery Maidan police station. The police intervened and arrested one person while the others managed to escape. An FIR was registered against them while a maintenance mobile van was also recovered.

Reportedly, the KESC claimed that a group of union workers also attacked a maintenance team working near the old American Embassy Road as they were replacing faulty PMTs at Preedy Street and School Road.

The alleged union workers took a vehicle (LSA-4980) along with two PMTs of 250kVA and 500kVA.

The union workers also attacked an outsourced maintenance vehicle near Shaheen Complex as a KESC team was busy repairing a faulty cable. They vehicle was severely damaged while KESC workers were also injured. The police have lodged an FIR against these incidents.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 16^th, 2011.