KHYBER: The community health workers (CHWs) performing health-related duty under the supervision of Chip Training Consultants (CTC) in Khyber tribal district have demanded increase in their monthly salaries keeping in view the current wave of rising inflation. Scores of CHWs told Dawn, with a request to withhold their identities, that their services were hired in March 2016 by CTC under the community-based vaccination (CBV) programme of World Health Organisation to enhance anti-polio vaccination in different districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. They said that apart from carrying on a vigorous polio vaccination campaign during its designated days in Khyber and other districts of the province, their services were also acquired for expanded programme on immunisation and dengue awareness on different occasions under the same contract for which they were paid a fixed salary of Rs32,000 per month. Officials say the issue being considered by donor agencies They said that federal and provincial governments fixed minimum monthly wages at Rs37,000, so they too were entitled to a raise in their monthly stipend as they were hit hard by the rising prices of daily use items. Responding to queries about demand for a raise in the salaries of CHWs, relevant officials argued that raise in salaries of such project employees was subject to approval of additional funds by donor agencies. They said that though the issue was under consideration of donor agencies, it would take some time to materialise. They, however, clarified that fixing of minimum wages by governments had nothing to do with the contracts signed with health workers hired for community-based vaccination projects. : Station house officers in Khyber have been directed to get a mandatory three-month course of investigation to be considered eligible for the said posting at any police station. A notification issued from the office of district police officer the other day directed all the SHOs and heads of police posts along with other interested officials to submit applications for the course. It said that only successful candidates would be considered for posting as SHOs and heads of police posts while those, who were declared failed in the course, would be removed from those posts in near future. Officials said that the training was made mandatory for SHOs as most of them were not well-versed in the required knowledge of investigation.