Demand government withdraw decision on closing stores that provide subsidized items to the underprivileged and jobs to thousands of employees across the country; Nationwide sit-in on August 26.
PESHAWAR - Employees of the Utility Stores Corporation of Pakistan have launched a protest campaign after the federal government halted subsidies on items being sold in these stores, bringing their operations to a standstill.
Employees in various districts, including Swabi, Abbottabad, Kohat, Peshawar, and others, took to the streets, demanding that the government refrain from closing these stores, which have provided daily-use items to the underprivileged at subsidized rates for decades.
Tufail Khan, head of a utility store in the city, told this correspondent that women and other underprivileged consumers visited their store in large numbers on Saturday but returned empty-handed as the subsidized items were no longer allowed by the federal government.
“Now our system is digital. We tried to sell items, but today the government disallowed the subsidy on items. And the prices were higher than the market, which is why customers returned empty-handed in despair,” he added.
Sajjad Ali, in charge of the utility store on Arbab Road, told The Nation that his outlet alone has six employees, in addition to the daily wagers who also work there.
“In KP, there are around 4,000 employees, and there are around 14,000 employees across Pakistan. All these workers and their families will lose their livelihood if the utility stores are closed in the country,” he added.
“We only receive salaries from the Corporation. The subsidy is only for the public, not the employees; and even the salaries we get are heavily taxed. Now we are even deprived of our salaries too,” he said.
He further stated that the utility stores owe billions to various companies that have supplied items to these stores. “On the other hand, the government owes the stores around Rs14 billion in subsidies. This is the third year that the government has approved the subsidy but has not released it to the stores,” he added.
He mentioned that on Monday, employees from all over Pakistan would stage a sit-in in Islamabad.
Following the federal government’s decision to shut down utility stores, employees have begun protests. In Peshawar, the employees, while protesting, said that the federal government’s decision is an act of cruelty and injustice against them.
They stated that they pay 25 billion rupees in taxes annually, yet 14,000 employees connected to utility stores have been deprived of their livelihood.
The protesting employees further mentioned that their services continued uninterrupted during the COVID-19 pandemic and floods and that 19 of their colleagues lost their lives while performing their duties during the pandemic.
They warned that if the government does not revoke this decision, all utility store employees will stage a sit-in at D-Chowk in Islamabad. The employees also highlighted that there had been no increase in their salaries from 2021 to 2024, and this recent decision adds to their woes.
The protesters emphasized that utility stores are a welfare institution, and now people are being deprived of this subsidy.
They stated that more than 12,000 families are directly linked to utility stores and that these stores are among the institutions from which the government was earning billions in annual profits. They argued that this decision would further exacerbate the difficulties of inflation-stricken people.