SWABI: All employees of the Women University Swabi (WUS), including the teaching staff, have been working on contract basis since its establishment in 2015, sources in the university told Dawn on Tuesday.

The WUS was started as a campus of Shaheed Benazir Bhutto University, Peshawar, in 2013 and later it was given the status of a full-fledged university in 2015.

So far, over 20 departments offering BS and master level progammes have been established in the university.

“There are over 200 employees in the university who have been working on contract basis and getting meagre salaries. Some of the low-scale employees are working in the university projects and not even paid their salaries in time,” said the sources.

The 200 employees also include teaching, administrative staff

The contract employees include the academic and administrative staff, drivers, gardeners, etc.

The employees alleged that the Higher Education Department (HED), Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, had failed to take steps for regularisation of their services for over seven years. They said the university recently advertised different posts, but the process of recruitment had been delayed on one pretext or the other.

They demanded of the government to ensure prompt steps by HED for regularising their services.

Prof Shahana Urooj Kazmi, who assumed charge of the VC office in Feb 2020, had expressed her desire to regularise all the employees, but no progress was made in this regard so far.

When contacted, the VC said that perhaps the employees were scared to raise the issue of regularisation of services, but added that they had initiated the process which would take about six months.

‘KILLERS’ TRACED: The police have traced and arrested the suspects in the blind murder case of a prominent trader of Maneri Bala, Raees Dad, who was killed 10 days ago.

DPO Imram Shahid said on Tuesday the police team arrested Bilal Khan and Athwar Dad, who are relatives of Raees Dad, and during investigation they confessed to have killed him.

Published in Dawn, October 14th, 2020