No relief for salaried individuals

The long awaited budget has at last seen the light of the day. Being the last budget of the present regime, people were expecting more relief –- the salaried individuals were quite optimistic about the de-freezing of the house rent allowance and a proportionate increase in the conveyance allowance. But both these areas were not addressed. The cost of human transportation has increased a lot during the past few years. A major chunk of income from salary is consumed in paying for housing as well as travelling. Unfortunately, salaried individuals have to bear the brunt of dearness allowance and of inflation caused by increase in different indirect taxes which further dent their purchasing power.

The employees of BPS 1 – 16 are affected badly as they get a nominal increase in their salary since they derive a meagre income. For example, an employee with Rs15,000 basic pay will get an increment of Rs1,500 only when the government announced 10 percent increment will be implemented whereas dearness allowance rises exponentially, leading to more tax. It is hoped that these issues will be taken into account by our representatives in both houses and miseries of salaried individuals will be mitigated.

Iftikhar Mirza

Islamabad