PAC rules do not provide for pensions, benefits

PAC still lacks rules to pay pensions or other benefits available to most Punjab government workers.

LAHORE: The Punjab Arts Council (PAC), created under the Art Act of 1975, still lacks rules to pay pensions or other benefits available to most Punjab government workers.

The PAC currently employs over 200 people in eight art councils across Punjab.

Most of the employees hired in the 1970s are nearing retirement.

Over the years, they have repeatedly urged the Culture Department to frame rules pertaining to pensions and other benefits, conventionally available to career public employees.

A PAC official told The Express Tribune that the Culture Department has been prompted in this regard several times but never done the needful.

“A meeting in June 2006 between the PAC directors and the Culture Department officials succeeded in persuading the then culture minister, Shaukat Bhatti, to direct Taimur Azmat Osman, the then secretary for information, culture and youth affairs, to take notice.”

“However, the issue was soon forgotten and nothing was done about it,” he said.

“All PAC officials, including those working in its subordinate councils across Punjab, have been treated like contractual employees through the years, added.

Seeking anonymity, a PAC official who has now worked for 25 years, told The Express Tribune that he had joined in BS-16 and is still serving in the same grade.

“I have worked like a daily wager and will go on to retire in a few months likely in the same grade,” he lamented, “as there are no rules regarding promotions, move overs or pensions.”

Another PAC official, on condition not to be identified, said promoting art was not on government’s priority list.

Asked about her view, Azma Zahid Bukhari, the parliamentary secretary for culture and youth affairs, said she would raise the issue in the next session of the Punjab Assembly and will seek a revision of the rules regarding pensions, customary benefits and promotions of the PAC employees.

She also regretted previous governments’ failure to address the issue.

Bodies like the Lok Virsa in Islamabad, the Lahore Museum, the Multan Development Authority (MDA) and the Punjab Institute of Language Art and Culture (PILAAC) all have adopted rules providing benefits to their employees.

The rules and regulations of the PAC were last revised in 1982.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 3^rd, 2010.