PAKISTAN: Quake-hit radio station left to suffer

Nine months after earthquake, Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation slow to help rebuild radio stations

Dawn
Thursday, July 6, 2006

Muzaffarabad --- The quake-stricken employees of Radio Muzaffarabad are still working in abject conditions due to an 'indifferent' attitude of Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation towards their plight.

Of the two buildings of the 150kw radio station, one was flattened and the other was rendered unusable by the Oct 8 quake which consequently brought its transmissions of to a grinding halt.

The tremor also destroyed the adjacent radio employees' colony.

According to the United Staff Organisation (USO), the representative body of radio workers, there had been 59 deaths in the families of radio employees.

However, many employees returned to ruined premises within two weeks and resumed transmissions from flimsy tents through an FM network.

Ever since, they regretted, they had been left by the PBC at the mercy of circumstances as it "has shown least concern to improve their working conditions".

Talking to this correspondent, the employees made various complaints against the organisation.

"We have been working in these conditions from a biting winter to severe summer. It seems as if we are not part of this society," remarked USO president Jamil Anwar Kashmiri, who had taken off his shirt to fight the sizzling temperature.

Mr Kashmiri claimed that salaries of AJK TV Centre employees were doubled and each of them was given an immediate relief of Rs100,000 after the earthquake. However, he regretted, no such benefit was passed on by PBC to its employees in Muzaffarabad.

He pointed out that employees of Radio Pakistan Faisalabad had sent an amount of Rs350,000 for their quake-hit colleagues in Muzaffarabad but nobody knew where that money had vanished.

He said the PBC was building only five shelter homes in the colony which he feared could pitch the employees against each other at the time of allotment.

He asked the PBC to follow the AJK government which had exempted its employees from taxes and recovery of loans like house building, motorcycle and car advances.

He said the PBC should increase the salary of contract employees.

Date Posted: 7/6/2006