SWABI: Dean of Gajju Khan Medical College (GKMC) Prof Shamsur Rehman has denied stopping salaries of the employees and making `arbitrary` decisions as claimed by the protesting faculty members.

In a press release issued here on Friday, he said: `As to ensure smooth operations and accurate attendance records, biometric attendance machines have been installed in both the hospital and the college. And salaries are released based on the employees` biometric attendance data,` he said.

Regarding the replacement of heads of departments (HoDs), he said no professor had been sacked and decisions on HoDs`appointment were made in compliance with the rules of the Medical Teaching Institutions Act (MTI), which stipulated that the HoD positions were reserved for officers, who had either opted for MTI or were hired through MTI.

Consequently, he said the heads of departments concerned were replaced by MTI employees.

About the issue of leaves, he said the departments whose majority of faculty members took unapproved leaves on the 10th and lith of May, had been asked to explain their absence, as institutes wereclosed for students, not for faculty members.

The management subsequentlyadjusted the absence of the faculty as casual leave upon submission of their applications.

Regarding withdrawal of transport service to some staff members, Prof Rehman explained that pick-and-drop service to other cities was only being provided as a favour to the faculty and employees on the understanding that the vehicles would be provided by the college and the fuel charges would be managed by the users.

However, issues such as delayed contribution for fuel, late arrivals, and absenteeism led to the discontinuation of the service. Correspondent