No pension without protest: For the second time in a month, pensioners take to the streets

Retired employees of CDM have not received their pension for the past seven months.

RAWALPINDI:

Helped by their families and serving workers of the town administration, 1,700 old men, who served in the management of the city for decades, blocked the main artery of the city on Saturday for about an hour. They parked water tankers and garbage trucks on the Benazir Bhutto Road, bringing traffic to a standstill.

Even as these retired employees of Rawal Town and City District Government (CDG) blocked the city’s busiest road at Mareer Chowk, all they got was “yet another promise” by a government high up that the matter will be resolved soon.

This is the second protest in this month by the pensioners, who have not been paid their dues for the last seven months. On their previous protest on October 5, they were assured that they will receive their payments soon.

As many as 1,700 pensioners have been waiting for pensions, while the CDG and Rawal Town administration blame each other over the issue.

Assistant Commissioner (AC) Rawal Town Saif Anwar Jappa pacified the protesting pensioners and the working employees on behalf of District Coordination Officer (DCO) Saqib Zaffar.

The AC had to a written statement, saying that the district administration would get a special grant from provincial authorities in two days to hand out the pensions.

“I met the protestors on the direction of DCO and conveyed to them that the district government had written to the provincial authorities for financial grant,” Jappa told The Express Tribune.

The pensioners however vowed to come out again if they were not paid their dues in two days.

The protestors from Rawal Town, CDG, Rawalpindi Development Authority (RDA) and Water and Sanitation Agency (WASA) kept the road closed for about an hour chanting slogans against the provincial authorities and district administration for delaying their pensions.

“Rs2,000 or Rs4,000 a month may not be of any significance to them, but it is a life-line for us as we pensioners mainly bank on this money to get the things going,” said Ahmed Ali, a retired employee of the defunct Rawalpindi Corporation.

Another pensioner, Naveed Hassan, interjected, “This is a very dangerous trend. The government does not listen to you until you spend a whole day in the sun. We are not asking for any favours. We served in the corporation for decades, this pension is our right.”

The protestors, who included children and old women, chanted slogans against the Punjab government and said they had been made a rolling stone between the Rawal Town and CDG.

The predicament of the pensioners is said to be the result of transfer of staff from defunct Rawalpindi Corporation to the newly established CDG in 2001.

According to the devolution plan, the RC had to transfer all the funds and liabilities of its staff to the CDG but a major portion of the pension funds were not transferred, said an official in the finance department of the district government.

On the other hand, Town Municipal Officer Mian Akram claimed that the town administration duly transferred the funds to the CDG. “There are no dues from our side as far as the pensioners are concerned,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 30^th, 2011.