Rent allowance woes: ‘Can’t afford to put roofs over their heads’

FDE teachers have been denied rent allowances for over 18 months.

ISLAMABAD:

The finance division has denied the supplementary grant sought by the Federal Directorate of Education (FDE) to cover the rent for teachers and other education department employees’ accommodations, it has been learnt.

Only 20 per cent of FDE’s 20,000-plus employees have been given official residences, with the other 80 per cent being entitled to house rent allowances. Denied the allowance by the Finance Division, FDE staffers have been providing for this cost from their own pockets for the last year and a half. Most of the FDE’s 13,000 teachers and 7,500 non-teaching staff are not native to the twin cities.

Their case was forwarded by the Capital Administration and Development Division (CADD) to the finance division seeking a supplementary grant for the payment of rent allowance. However, an official from the city administration said that the finance division has refused to comply with the request, citing paucity of funds. Federal Government College Teachers Association (FGCTA) office bearers were informed of this during a meeting with senior CADD officials on March 1.

According to FDE officials, Rs1 billion are required for the purpose.

The delegation of Federal Government College Teachers Association (FGCTA), including FGCTA President Professor Zahid Ali Shah, General Secretary Professor Tariq Mahmood, and other office bearers, informed the CADD officials about the gravity of the issue.

The FGCTA president demanded that the issue should be resolved immediately as teachers are being threatened by their landlords and demanded that the case for supplementary funds be forwarded again.

“The owners have started throwing us out on the streets,” said Shahid Mehmood, a federal government college teacher.

He added that many teachers have shifted to the rural outskirts of Islamabad and Rawalpindi after being evicted. Another teacher said that he has been using loans from family to pay his landlord for over a year.

The delegation also drew the attention of the CADD administration to the long standing Time Scale Promotion issue.

According to an FGCTA office bearer, the delegation was told that a revised notification would be issued regarding the promotion from BPS-17 to 18 within a day or two.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 6^th, 2012.