Suffering of retired teaching, non-teaching staff continues

Islamabad : A number of retired teaching and non-teaching staff members of educational institutions working under Federal Directorate of Education (FDE) were facing hurdles and prolonged delays in payments of their pension dues, despite the strict directions of Supreme Court of Pakistan regarding the early finalization of pension cases.

Tahir Iqbal, a retired Vice Principal of Islamabad Model Postgraduate College (IMPC) H-8 said The college office sent my pension papers to FDE on April 21, 2020 but due to administrative bottlenecks, the case is not yet ready to transmit to AGPR for final payment. “I have been made shuttle between college and FDE. The authorities must take action to ensure smooth issuance of pension after retirement of the employees who have served for years,” he said while talking to this agency.

Liaquat Ali, another retired Associate Professor from Islamabad Model College for Boys, (IMCB) H-9, told this agency, “I got retired on April 14, 2020, from my service after awarding time scale of BPS-20. I applied to AGPR for revision of my payslip of BPS-20 which has not been issued yet. After getting a revised payslip, the Last Pay Certificate (LPC) will be needed to prepare my pension papers. So my pension case is still at an initial stage. A lengthy process of completion and verification of related documents is ahead and I am concerned how much time it will take,” he said.

The process of preparation of pension papers of Associate Professor Zair Hussain and Assistant Professor Zahir Rehman retired from IMCB, H-9 in March and April respectively were also at initial stages. A female Associate Professor, Danish Amjad, facing delay in issuance of her pension dues since retirement in May 2020 emphasized: “There should be a respectful way of payment of retirement benefits.” She suggested that the process should be started one year before the superannuation of the government servants so that pensions maybe sanctioned well in time before the retirement.

Unfortunately, the process of preparing the papers of pension starts after the retirement and it takes too much time due to administrative hurdles and the government servants have to move from pillar to post to get their dues after retirement.

A senior professor of a college on the condition of anonymity said, “It is a sign of absolute insensitivity and lack of basic courtesy towards a government servant who served the department for a long time and has to beg for his or her legitimate dues after retirement.” The government must find ways of ensuring a dignified retirement for those who give their blood and sweet to serve the society in their heydays.

It is pertinent to mention here that the Supreme Court has already given directions to all the departments and officers deployed to serve the general public that they shall not cause unnecessary hurdle or delay in finalizing the payment of retirement benefits cases and violation of these directions shall amount to criminal negligence and dereliction of the duty assigned to them. The head of the concerned department shall also be held liable for the contempt of court and shall be dealt with strictly in accordance with the law.

When contacted, Director General, FDE, Syed Umair Javed admitted the fact that the issuance of pension after retirement requires extensive paperwork and said the pensioners also do not complete paperwork when they are in service while sometimes there is a delay on the part of the respective institutions too.

FDE has clearly issued instruction for those near to retirement to complete their paperwork three months in advance and submit the very next day of retirement.

FDE will finalize the case within the time period of 15-20 days and send it to the AGPR. “We are also launching Pensioners Information System which would enable the pensioners to track and trace their cases through their CNICs and bring transparency in the service delivery mechanism,” he said.