Government admits Postal Insurance failure

ISLAMABAD:

In its written reply, the Ministry of Communications has told the upper house of parliament that the Postal Life Insurance Company has 33,830 pending claims and outstanding claims amounting to Rs8,165 million.

The Senate session resumed on Thursday with Deputy Chairman Syedal Khan in the chair. During the question hour, Senator Shahadat Awan sought further clarification on a question relating to Postal Life Insurance.

The ministry said against a budget demand of Rs8,400 million for FY 2025-26, only Rs3,000 million was approved — a figure that is grossly insufficient for clearing insurance claims.

Among the claimants are retired individuals and widows. The delays, the reply noted, damage public trust and amount to a failure in fulfilling legal obligations.

The ministry requested an additional Rs6 billion in the FY 2025-26 budget to clear the backlog, but the request was not fully approved. Only Rs3 billion were released, of which Rs2.75 billion have already been utilized.

Once the remaining amount is exhausted, the ministry will request the Finance Ministry to release Rs6.4 billion in unallocated funds. In his reply, Minister for Communications Aleem Khan accepted that it was the government's incompetence and negligence.

"People were promised their money but it has not been paid. We wrote to the Finance Ministry to release funds, and today again we are asking for the money to be released. "These funds are not with us; they are with the Finance Ministry. Every year we must approach them to release funds.