SHANGLA: The lady health workers and their supervisors staged a rally outside the office of the district health officer here on Friday, demanding payment of their salaries pending for five months.

The protest was staged on the call of the provincial lady health workers` association.

The protesters alleged that their officers forced also them to perform extra duty and pay for stationery and other expenditures from their own pockets.

LHW Shahnaz Bibi said sometime they had to perform duty out of their catchment areas, but were never rewarded. She said the health workers were also asked to perform duty during elections, but the government was not bothered to pay them their withheld salaries amid rocketing inflation.

Benish Bibi, an LHW from Chakesar, said she had to hire a vehicle for travel to office for attending meetings. She said she had to borrow Rs5,000 from her relative to attend the protest. She said LHWS were living below the poverty line.

`We even have to buy stationery like registers and monthly report papers from pocket money. Because of nonpayment of salaries for months, we areforced to take loans from neighbours to make both ends meet,` she said.

Shahid Khan, provincial information secretary of the LHWs association,said onthe occasionthattheyhad asked the LHWs and their supervisors across the province to boycott all duties, including anti-polio campaigns, from Friday till the time their salaries were paid. He said it was not the first time that they were not paid salaries as the government always delayed their salaries for months.

District health officer Shaukat Saleem Khan, while addressing the protesters, said he would approach the provincial authorities to get the salaries of health workers released. He also assured the LHWs that their issues of fuel, charcoal allowances and repair of vehicles would also be discussed with the authorities.

BODY FOUND: Body of a woman was recovered from the Indus River on Friday morning, a Rescue 1122 official said.

Rescue 1122 spokesperson Rasool Khan Sharif told Dawn that the body was shifted to the THQ Hospital.

Later, he said the woman was identified as a resident of Gilgit, who had drowned in the river two weeks ago.

Correspondent