Language promotion dept affairs in a mess

After the retirement of director general (DG) and executive director (ED), the financial and administrative affairs at the National Language Promotion Department (NLPD), formally known as National Language Authority (NLA), are in a total mess, Dawn has learnt.

According to an officer of NLPD, the department paid half of the salary for December 2012 after borrowing from pension funds.

This shows that if the situation does not improve, February will be tough for around 100 employees, he added.

DG Dr Anwar Ahmad retired on December 10 and ED Sarfraz Tariq on October 4.

“Though the joint secretary of Ministry of National Heritage and Integration (MNHI), Mohammad Bilal, has been looking after its affairs, problems regarding stationery, utility bills are still there,” he said.



“Because of financial crunch, there were no funds to pay salary to the employees for December. So it was decided to barrow money from pension fund, and from next month the pensioners will also suffer,” he said. Another employee said that NLA was independent organisation. “In 1973 Act, it was decided that Urdu will be official language of Pakistan and for the implementation of the law, NLA was established and was given the task to implement it within 15 years. On August 17, 2012 name of NLA was replaced with NLPD,” he said.

“NLPD directly placed under MNHI due to which Chairman NLA became DG and Secretary became ED. Now there is no one who could look after the issues of NLPD,” he said.

“The former DG Dr Anwar Ahmed, during his tenure as NLA chairman upgraded basic pay scales of 72 employees but after NLA’s attachment with ministry, they were reverted to their previous scales,” he said. An officer of MNHI, on condition of anonymity said that monthly salary of employees came to Rs2.6 million and the department had not received grant of second quarter of the financial year.

“As the department has not paid electricity and phone bills for November and December it may lose the two facilities. It will be embarrassing for the ministry,” he said.

Former DG, Dr Anwar Ahmad, while talking to Dawn, said that MNHI did not have the capacity to run literary departments. “MNHI has put a ban on publications which rendered nine composers, two proof readers and three employees of publication department have no work to do. I also did agreement with Microsoft and translated their publications and software in Urdu,” he said.

“The government should attach NLPD with Cabinet Division or like NLA make it an independent organisation so that it could generate funds through publications and literary work