As the contentious issue of unpaid salaries lingers on for decades, workers of the Hyderabad Development Authority (HDA) and its subordinate wings have warned of blocking city's waters and drainage system yet again. Hundreds of workers staged a sit-in demonstration outside the office of Director General HDA on Monday, giving one-week deadline to the authorities to pay their unpaid salaries and pensions of several months.
The employees claim that the department has defaulted to pay their five or more salaries. The workers union's leader Khalid Ansari said the inept administration of HDA and Water and Sanitation Agency (WASA), a subordinate wing of the HDA, are responsible for the plight of the workforce.
He said the employees are repeatedly compelled to take recourse to protests to demand their salaries. The suspension of water supply and stopping of the drainage pumping stations becomes inevitable for the workers to exact their salaries whose payment is an obligation on the HDA and WASA.
He said less than a month is left in Eidul Azha and the workers want their salaries at least three weeks before the Eid so that they can make arrangements to buy sacrificial animals and clothes for their families. The union's president Sajid Taqi said no serious efforts can be seen on the part of the authorities to arrange funds for their salaries and pensions.
The protesters deplored that the release of a grant of Rs500 million, approved for the HDA by Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah, has been stopped without a convincing reason. They urged the provincial government to release the funds and to streamline the revenue generation of HDA and its subordinate wings including WASA and Planning and Development Control.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 21st, 2024.
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