Call for help: Rescue officials waiting to be treated as govt employees

PESHAWAR:

For Rescue 1122 emergency service employees in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P), life is tough. Not only do they deal with tragedies in the city every day, but they also don’t have a service structure and believe this affects their level of efficiency.

The emergency service was set up under the K-P Emergency Service Act of 2012. According to the act, all employees of the organisation would be governed under the West Pakistan Essential Service Maintenance Act of 1958. Through this, the employees shall receive all remunerations, allowances and privileges just like any other government organisation.

The employees, however, told The Express Tribune that they have been working contract to contract since they were hired and no allowances or privileges were given to them.

“Even the families of three workers who died during routine duties have not been compensated,” said Bilal Ahmad Faizi, an employee. “We are working side by side with law enforcement officials, including the police. Compared to us, they (the police) are getting a hefty pay and access to other facilities.”

He added that their work was connected to risks but they did not get any risk allowance which was initially promised to all 400 employees.

According to Faizi, unlike most government organisations where they give an allowance for rent, etc, their employees at the Faqirabad emergency centre were living in tents as they cannot afford to rent or buy accommodation on their salaries.

Another worker of the 1122 service said the government did not treat them like workers of other government organisations.

The employees claimed that 100% of basic relief allowance was provided to employees of the Provincial Disaster Management Authority but Rescue 1122 is only provided half of that allowance.

At the moment, Rescue 1122 is working in two districts – Mardan and Peshawar, with a total of 400 employees. The service is also available in Punjab, Gilgit-Baltistan and Azad Kashmir. All staff has been trained to act fast during an emergency and are equipped with first aid and fire extinguishing skills. Besides cases of heavy traffic jam, the rescue members maintain their standard response rate to an average of six minutes.

Dr Asad Ali Khan is Rescue 1122’s first Director General (DG) to have been hired on a permanent basis by the government of K-P to lead the organisation.

Talking to The Express Tribune, he said workers of the emergency service were providing the city with exemplary services and he would try to provide them with the facilities they need. He added that work was being done to protect the employees under the basic services structure.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 19^th, 2014.