Pensioner dies waiting overnight for pay

An old pensioner of the Pakistan Railways, waiting outside the Loco Shop bank branch overnight for the payment has lost his life, according to the media sources. As the Railways failed to pay the pensions on Tuesday, the old pensioner was sleeping outside the bank with a hope to receive his pension early in the morning.

The Pakistan Railways has failed to fulfil the claims made by its general manager Operations, who assured the ex-employees the payment of dues by October 25. Several pensioners were sleeping outside the bank for payment since yesterday.

After Ministry of finance issued Rs 1 billion grant to Pakistan Railway few days ago, the current and the ex-employees were assured of the payments by the GM Saeed Akhtar. The protest that the Railway Unions had started against the non-payment of the salaries and the pension were called off after the announcement.

Saeed Akthar had said that Pakistan Railway had no issue with the provision of the salaries and the pensions and that evey single one of the current and the ex-employees would be paid by the October 25. GM had also stated that the pensions for the next month would also be paid in advance before the Eidul Azha.

As per the instructions, the Railway employees were paid but the pensioners were still not considered. Hundreds of ex-employees were ignored, and it forced them to gather in front of the PR headquarters in all major cities, including Lahore, Karachi, Peshawar, and Quetta. They chanted slogans against the indifferent and heartless manner of the PR authorities.

Many of them were saying that they totally depend only on the pensions. The pensioners alleged the Government on indifference behaviour. They questioned why the salaried of the PR bureaucracy were not delayed. They complained that PR considered the bureaucracy superior than the workers and the pensioners.  They were also lamenting over the lies that PR authorities spoke to the entire nation just to avoid the strike.

The PR spokesperson while explaining the reason for the delay in the provision of salaries said that the department had transferred Rs77.73 million to 78 bank branches all over the country to ensure payment. He said the reason behind non-payment could be the unexpected bank holiday on Monday which might have delayed the transfer of funds through the banking system. He was hopeful that the matter would be resolved by Wednesday once the funds were transacted.

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Posted by Waqas Munir on Oct 26 2011. Filed under Pakistan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry