Govt mulls over three proposals to increase salaries

ISLAMABAD: At least three proposals are under consideration of the federal government to provide relief to the salaried class.
Sources in the Ministry of Finance told The News that the regulation wing of the ministry had forwarded three proposals to the secretary finance for increase in the salaries of federal government employees. The secretary finance would forward these proposals to Finance Minister Senator Ishaq Dar for his final nod.
The regulation, through a summary, proposes that all the five ad hoc reliefs given to government employees from the year 2010 to 2014 be merged into the basic salary.
Another proposal says only 50 percent major ad hoc reliefs given in the year 2010 may be merged into the basic salaries.
It has also been proposed that the government employees be given 10-15 percent increase in basic salaries or yet another ad hoc relief. The government may also go for merging all the ad hoc reliefs into the basic salaries except for the 50 percent ad hoc relief allowance.
It may be pointed out that besides getting 50 per cent ad hoc relief, the government employees got reliefs of 10-20 percent in years 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014.
The government employees, however, demand that the government merge all the ad hoc reliefs into the basic salary saying that 10-15 percent raise in salaries or yet another relief of same percentage would not help them meet their ever increasing monthly expenses. There is also a demand that the house hiring allowance be increased and may also be given along with the salary.
Besides providing relief to the employees, the move would also lessen huge burden on the AGPR and the government departments which have established separate estate management wings to deal with house hiring of their employees.