ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU) has restored Umrah Scheme for its employees and its ballot for selecting the lucky ones will be held next week.
While addressing the oath-taking ceremony of Employees Welfare Association (EWA) in Islamabad on Monday, the Vice Chancellor AIOU Professor Dr Shahid Siddiqui said that Umrah Scheme that was held up for the last four years would be now made a regular feature, and assured that the employees’ welfare would be his top priority.
The VC AIOU hoped that they would work in a team spirit with the university’s management in the efforts of upgrading educational facilities for the students. He asserted that the AIOU should be developed as model institution for providing best possible educational facilities to the people at their door-steps.
Dr Shahid Siddiqui further announced that the employees’ health and residential facilities would be upgraded.
The Vice Chancellor told a big gathering of the employees that negotiation was in progress with some insurance companies for providing health cards to the employees, so that they could get medical facilities in any hospital of their choice.
Responding to the EWA’s demand for regularizing the services of daily wages’ employees, he said such employees would be given priority in filling the vacant posts that had already been advertised.
The Vice Chancellor AIOU recounted the employees’ welfare steps taken recently that included setting up day care and fitness centers.
About the employees’ promotion cares, Dr Shahid Siddiqui said that three selection boards and five departmental promotion committees were held in the last two years to accommodate the genuine cases. He said that now university’s statute was also being revised so that the left-over promotion cases could be attended on urgent basis.