Islamabad Police on Wednesday fired tear gas at government employees who were heading towards the Parliament House and demanding an increase in their salaries.
Federal government employees yesterday rejected a 40 percent increase in their salaries and announced countrywide protests from today.
According to the sources, on Tuesday, the federal cabinet approved a 40 percent raise in the salaries of 370,000 government employees, from grades one to 16, while provincial officers will not benefit from the move.
The decision came during a federal cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Imran Khan, where views were exchanged on the country’s economic and political situation. “40 percent increase has been approved by the federal cabinet for federal government’s employees,” said the sources.
Although, the federal government left it in the hands of the provincial governments to decide whether they wanted to increase the salaries of their employees or not.
The decision was, however, rejected by the protesting government employees. The salaried class termed the increase highly disproportionate and rejected the 40 percent increase in salaries of government employees and announced countrywide protests from Wednesday. They said that if the government could not increase salaries, then it should at least control the soaring inflation.
It is worth mentioning here that a number of government employee unions announced their strike call last month after the Ministry of Finance did not agree with the suggestion to increase the salaries of government employees on an urgent basis.
Moreover, the political and economic situation of the country was also discussed in the cabinet meeting. The meeting discussed the situation arising out of the decision of the Supreme Court on a petition filed to seek guidance regarding upcoming Senate elections.
Previously, in a statement, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi had said that whichever orders would be directed by the Supreme Court in connection with the Senate Elections will be respected and followed.
