Clerks, doctors, LHWs stage sit-in at D-Chowk

Govt employees push for salary increment instep with inflation

ISLAMABAD:

The Islamabad Capital Territory Administration (ICTA) faces a tough situation as federal government employees from different parts of the country converged in the capital on Wednesday, demanding increment in salaries and pensions in line with inflation.

Disgruntled Lady Health Workers (LHWs), members of All Pakistan Clerks Association (APCA) and the Young Doctors Association (YDA) were holding protests on the same day demanding better packages in view of runaway food prices.

Hundreds of LHWs, mostly from Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Islamabad, reached the D-Chowk in the morning chanting slogans against the incumbent and previous governments for ignoring their issues.

With some wearing garlands of vegetables and bread and others demonstrating eating leaves for survival, protestors demanded increment in salaries equivalent to that of LHWs under provincial governments. The LHWs demanded the restoration of the National Programme for Family Planning and Basic Health along with the development of service structure.

By afternoon, the D-Chowk became more crowded as employees from different federal government institutions came to protest under the umbrella of APCA followed by convoys of YDA members.

All the demonstrators jointly decided to relocate their sit-in outside the Parliament House and marched towards it. The police tried to stop the protesters from reaching there but all impediments were scaled as the containers and barbed wires could not stop the angry protesters.

However, they were stopped by the paramilitary Rangers at the Parade Ground. The demonstrators chanted slogans against the government and returned to D-Chowk for the sit-in.

The spirits of the protesters went high went the Ex-Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf, Senators Rubina Khalid, and Mohsin Dawar reached the protest location and extended their support for the demands put forth by the federal government employees.

The demonstrators said that the government was trying to deprive them of their right to life and demanded increment in salaries and pensions in line with the recent surge in inflation.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 15^th, 2020.