Retired Pakistan Railway pensioner dies while waiting for his pension; protest continues

Retired Pakistan Railway pensioner dies while waiting for his pension; protest continues

The unrelenting financial crisis at Pakistan Railways (PR) has finally claimed a pensioner’s life while he waited overnight to receive his pension.

According to the reports Mahmood Khan, who was a former railway employee, passed away while waiting for his pension. Khan, who was a resident of Lalpur area of Lahore, stood all night alone in front of the bank before he fell unconscious and was taken to the hospital in an emergency, where he expired.

Pakistan Railway employees have not been given with their salaries for the past three months, whereas pensioners are also waiting for around one month. Therefore several pensioners were sitting outside a local bank since yesterday night because as per the promises made the distribution of pensions was due to begin Wednesday (today) morning.

Pakistan Railways came to a halt all over the country when the Railway employee recently protested on a mega scale until the entire employee unions were assured by Pakistan Railway that they will get their salaries by October 25, 2011.

The General Manager of Pakistan Railway, Saeed Akhtar, had categorically stated that Pakistan Railways need an amount of Rs 1 billion from the federal government to fulfil the employees need. Akhtar had even insisted that Pakistan Railway with this much amount would also give out all of its employees with their next month’s salary before Eidul Azha.

However, all of the promises that were made to the Pakistan Railway employees have proved wrong and now once again they have been forced by the government to protest in front of the Pakistan Railway headquarters in Lahore and at the regional offices all over the country especially in Karachi, Rawalpindi, Peshawar and Quetta.

Most of the pensioners, who have appealed the government many a times that they are totally dependent on their pensions, now think that their superiors told them a lie just to avoid the protest. They are also questioning that how the salaries of the PR bureaucracy were not delayed even when they are much higher than theirs.

A spokesman of PR while explaining to the employees remarked that the transactions would have been made by today but some unexpected local bank holiday has maybe caused the delay.

Short URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=1577

Posted by Imran Shaukat Khan on Oct 26 2011. Filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry