Health workers demand higher salaries

MANSEHRA: The lower-grade employees of the Health Department sought an increase in salaries in accordance with the ongoing inflation rate and restoration of pensions for them.

“The increase in salaries announced by the government in the current fiscal year’s budget does not match the ongoing inflation rate,” Sardar Mohammad Shafi, the president of lower grade employees of the King Abdullah Teaching Hospital (Kath), told the protesters on Wednesday.

The protesters wearing black armbands assembled outside the hospital and raised slogans in support of their demands. Sardar Shafi said that the price of the essential commodities was still skyrocketing and public sector employees were the worst hit but the government didn’t announce any remedial measures for them in the budget.

“Though there is an all-time high inflation in the country and the business community, labourers and other segments of the society have also enhanced their rates and wages, the government employees have not got an adequate pay raise,” he added. He demanded the government restore the pensions of government employees inducted into the public service from 2001 to 2019.