KARACHI:
Punjab Chief Minister Usman Buzdar has announced a 25% special allowance for government employees, and the announcement is to take effect from June 2021. The special allowance will be given to more than 721,000 government employees in grade 1 to grade 19 who previously did not receive any allowances in addition to their salaries. Chief Minister Buzdar has also assured “some good news” for provincial employees in the coming budget, saying that the government is aware of the problems of the salaried class who have been suffering even more in the times of the raging Covid-19 pandemic.
A few days back, Chief Minister of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Mahmood Khan had also announced a 25% increase in the salaries of provincial government employees from June 1 so that they could keep up with rising inflation levels. The K-P chief minister also announced a monthly increase of Rs4,000 in the pays of daily-wage earners from the coming financial year, fixing it at Rs21,000 per month from the current Rs17,000.
While the governments in the two provinces have announced measures to help the salaried class cope with the rising inflation, the Sindh government has so far been quiet in this regard. Like the government employees in other provinces, those in Sindh have also been suffering due to an unprecedented price hike and rising power and gas tariffs, and expect the chief executive of their province to pay attention to their plight. The Sindh government should, therefore, announce what they have planned for its employees as part of budget relief.
Mohammed Abbas
Karachi
Published in The Express Tribune, June 6th, 2021.
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