We didn’t start the fire: Class-IV employees deprived of charcoal stocks, allowance

Peons and others believe they may have been swindled by those responsible for distribution .

PESHAWAR:

With Class-IV employees of the Establishment and Administration department yet to receive their year’s charcoal stocks, senior peon Haji Muhammad Khan fears they may have been swindled.

These employees including peons, sweepers, gardeners, watchmen and drivers have been receiving charcoal stocks from the government since pre-Partition.

In those days, there were no gas and electricity facilities and employees would burn the charcoal to shield themselves from the biting cold. According to the system introduced by the British, watchmen in Peshawar are entitled to 90 kilogrammes of charcoal and others are given 75 kilogrammes or the cash equivalent under market rates excluding taxes.



“All other departments’ staff received their share, but we have yet to get ours,” Khan tells The Express Tribune while busy making tea for office staff.Employees of the Civil Secretariat receive their charcoal share or cash of the same value during winter. However, Khan and his colleagues in the department have been deprived and are worried that those responsible for distribution have pocketed the share.

Civil Secretariat Class-IV Association President Jabir Hussain Bangash and other employees say efforts to acquire their stocks have thus far been useless.

“We are told that tenders have been floated for bids and the contractor is coming within a week,” says another senior peon Mohammad Bari.He adds the same cycle repeats itself week in and week out. Bari has been serving the K-P government since 1978.

He feeds his 10-member family in Peshawar with the Rs25,000 monthly salary he receives from the department. “Last year I received Rs1,800 for the season which is usually counted from November to January in Peshawar.”

“I would warm up the Angithi (fire pit) before Sahib (the boss) would reach office. The pit would then be placed in the officer’s room and I would start preparing his green tea,” says Mohammad Shahid, a finance department peon at the Civil Secretariat.



Bangash says each Class-IV employee now gets up to Rs2,000 for three months as seasonal stock every year. The Class-IV association president remains reluctant to speak on the issue because he is worried officers will stop this fund. “We don’t have any other privileges and I am afraid officers will stop this one too if we discuss it in the media.”

He adds that the issue of the Establishment and Administration department’s Class-IV employees will soon be resolved and that he is in contact with the officers who distribute the charcoal allowance.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 20^th, 2015.