Literacy dept not to renew contracts of 1,000 employees

Contract-based employees have announced legal action, protests

RAWALPINDI:

The Punjab government has decided to lay off more than 1,000 contract based employees of the Punjab Literacy Department instead of regularising them.

Their contracts for the job will not be renewed and government has decided to go for new hiring on around 1,007 seats that will fall vacant once the contract terms of these employees are expired.

Punjab Literacy Project was given the status of a separate department and the contract employees were hoping to be regularized in the future as is the routine with the government employess in all departments who are first recruited on contract and then regularized.

However, the government has fallen short of the expectations and decided not to renew the contract of 1,007 employees of the Literacy Department.

Most of the employees have been working on a contractual basis for around 15 months and they are overage now. Hence, they would not be able to reapply for the positions.

The workers have announced to approach the Lahore High Court (LHC) against the possible lay off.

Meanwhile, the action committee of contract employees told The Express Tribune that they would stage protests against the decision and do for lockdowns to register their protest.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 24^th, 2021.