Salaries of Punjab doctors, KP varsity staff deducted

It was promised that the healthcare professionals would get one-month additional pay amid the coronavirus pandemic, but the Punjab government instead opted to deduct salaries of doctors, nurses and paramedics, 24NewsHD TV channel reported on Thursday.

There is great anxiety and frustration among doctors and other healthcare professionals as the provincial government deducted the salaries of according to basic pay scale despite all the promises and tall claims.

The government has been talking about giving one month additional salary to doctors and other healthcare professionals. In fact, some of the government office holders had even said that they would get the additional pay during the entire coronavirus pandemic.

On the other hand, the public-sector universities in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are facing severe economic crunch and have been unable to even disburse salaries to their academic and non-teaching staff. And Abdul Wali Khan University of Mardan is one of them.

As all the educational institutions are closed in the province, the varsity has decided to slash the salaries of its employees.

According to the university administration, they have decided to pay half salary to the staff member because of the worsening financial crisis.

The varsity doesn’t have the resources to disburse the monthly pays, the administration claimed, adding that they couldn’t even pay the electricity, internet and transport bills.

The varsity administration claimed that the crisis was a result of students not paying their fees and they had requested the provincial government for a grant.

But the assertion about the students not paying the fees seems to be unfounded because the public-sector universities have been this situation for quite some time as other universities are also going through a similar situation.

It is despite the fact that the PTI came into power with slogans of increasing the education and health budget.