Demo and sit-in: Teachers to protest for new benefits

Demand notification of benefits by end of Nov, govt seeks time till end of Dec.

LAHORE:

The Punjab Teachers Union (PTU) is planning to hold a demonstration and rally here today (Wednesday) to press the provincial government to introduce new benefits for public servants by the end of this month.

PTU spokesman Rana Liaquat Ali said that the federal government had announced the benefits – including a travelling allowance/daily allowance (TA/DA), a conveyance allowance and leave encashment – in July and the Punjab was the only province in which they had yet to be notified.

Ali said the union was in talks with government officials including the education minister, but having made no substantial progress as of Tuesday evening, had decided to hold a demonstration at Nasser Bagh on Wednesday morning, followed by a march to the Civil Secretariat and a sit-in. “This protest will only include teachers from Lahore district, of which there are close to 4,000,” he said. The Punjab Teachers Union has a registered membership of almost 350,000, he said.

Asked what the protesters hoped to achieve, Ali said that the government had promised the notification by December 31, which was “too late”. He said the notifications should be issued by the end of November. In a separate press statement, the PTU said that the government must address their reservations by November 30 or face province-wide teachers’ protests.

Government officials said that talks were ongoing and there was no need for protests. Schools Education Secretary Aslam Kamboh said that government officials were in contact with PTU members and the talks were positive. He said that the new benefits had not been notified yet due to “routine procedural delays”.

Kamboh said that the demands made by the PTU were not specific to teachers, but applicable to all government servants. He said that since a large proportion of government servants were teachers, “they have appeared in the limelight as a segment which is being adversely affected” by the delay in granting the new benefits.

The PTU said it had also demanded some teacher-specific measures, including the introduction of a four-tier promotion formula in schools as in colleges, and the immediate promotion of primary and elementary teachers. “We expect the government to work on all our demands,” said Ali.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 7^th, 2012.