The federal government has backtracked from its announcement of upgrading the post of superintendent to basic pay scale (BPS) 17 and has only sanctioned higher time scales to superintendents, denying them benefits of higher house rent and medical allowance.
In his second budget speech, Finance Minister Senator Ishaq Dar had announced that the post of superintendent is being upgraded from Grade-16 to Grade-17. This announcement had given hope of better living standards to thousands of superintendents working in the federal government ministries, divisions, attached departments and subordinate offices.
After initial dilly-dallying, the finance ministry finally issued a notification early last month. Instead of upgrading the post to BPS-17, the government only granted higher time scales to the existing lot of the superintendents while making even this reduced facility conditional for the future.
“The prime minister has been pleased to accord approval to the grant of higher time scale to the superintendents (BPS-16),” said the notification issued by finance ministry’s regulation wing.
The notification further read that the facility of higher time scale is only one-time for the incumbent superintendents, while in future minimum three years’ satisfactory services as superintendent in BPS-16 will be required for grant of BPS-17.
The government has not changed the rules, nomenclature, and tier of the posts and seniority of the superintendents. Further, the incumbent beneficiaries will only be entitled to the salaries of BPS-17 and there will be no change in the entitlement of rental ceiling, house rent allowance and medical allowance.
The notification is a clear deviation from the commitment as the government did not upgrade the post, said officials working in the Establishment Division.
Had the government upgraded the post, it would have changed the recruitment rules and nomenclature, they added. “In that case, the Establishment Division would also have issued a notification,” said one of the officials.
The officials said post upgrading would have created problems for the government, as the section officers –the first tier of the bureaucracy that joins the service after passing the competitive exam are also in grade 17. The section officers would also have demanded to upgrade their post to grade 18, they added.
The superintendents perform clerical tasks and are recruited in grade 14 as assistants. After 15 to 18 years of service they are eventually promoted as superintendents. After over 15 years of service their monthly take-home salary is in the range of Rs35,000, according to a superintendent who has a working experience of 22 years.
According to the revised pay scales, a superintendent in grade 16 is entitled to an average Rs14,000 monthly house rent – an allowance that is fixed at over Rs19,000 for a civil servant working in grade 17. Similarly, the grade 16 employee is availing about Rs1,800 monthly medical allowance which is over Rs2,000 for a grade 17 officer.
With a monthly house rent ceiling of Rs14,000, one cannot find a house in Islamabad, said a superintendent working in a federal division. “Due to low ceilings, the employees working in grade 14 to 16 are mostly living in the adjoining areas of Islamabad that has increased their transportation cost,” he added.
Had the government granted the house rent and medical allowance of grade 17 to the superintendents, the accumulative annual cost would have been less than Rs70 million, according to sources in Ministry of Finance.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 10th, 2014.
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