Nadra contract employees

THE National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) was founded in 2000 to collect data of Pakistanis with biometric and other technology. The United Nations and other foreign agencies funded the government to furnish and provide state-of-the-art technologies to Nadra.

The authority has registered 68 million Pakistanis with tremendous hard work of the employees and successfully collected data from rural areas through mobile registration vans and other data acquisition units.

All security agencies, banks and many other departments are depending on Nadra’s database, but regrettably its 90 per cent employees are hired on a contract basis.

The employees have not received any increment in their salaries for the last four years, as announced by the government from time to time.

It is very difficult to survive in such a situation, particularly when inflation is increasing while Nadra employees’ salary has remained frozen from the beginning.

The slain leader of the PPP, Benazir Bhutto, had announced in her party’s manifesto that the Nadra department would be directly controlled by the government of Pakistan through the ministry of interior and its employees would be regularised.

But the bureaucracy that the Shaukat Aziz government had pampered is still occupying seats in the administration and is refusing to implement the policy of the democratic government.

The authorities have announced special timings for Nadra staff (from 9am to

9pm --12 hours -- without any compensation or overtime) that is not followed at any other government/semi-government department.

The government has announced that contract employees shall be given salary, allowances and other privileges equivalent to regular employees but the same are not implemented by Nadra authorities.

Our appeal to the president is that all Nadra employees must be regularised and treated as permanent employees of the ministry of interior. Why is there a delay after the announcement of the prime minister of Pakistan?  link