7.5% ad hoc allowance for govt servants

ISLAMABAD:

Disregarding a longstanding demand of public servants for a hike in basic salary, the government has once again announced a 7.5% ad hoc allowance for them.

This is the 6th year in a row that government servants will get budgetary relief in the shape of ad hoc allowances. The first such allowance was announced in 2010. This year, however, the government has decided to merge in their pay scale two allowances, given to them in 2011 and 2012.

Any increase in the basic salary results in proportional increase in the house rent and other related benefits that an employee gets. Due to ad hoc allowances, the portion of ad hoc allowances has become much bigger than their basic pay. These allowances are 105% compared to their basic pay.

Due to these ad hoc allowances, there has been unrest in government employees who believe if the government keeps the pay scale unchanged, the salaried class will not get any significant relief.

There was a proposal to merge all five ad hoc allowances and a revision of the basic pay scale. The government claims the proposal carried huge budgetary implications because of the overall impact. However, it took a partial step and merged two ad hoc allowances.



The government also announced a premature increment for Grade 5 employees. This increment was given to Grade 1 to 4 employees last year.

It also announced an Rs10,000 special allowance to government employees who have PhD degrees. The new allowance will replace Rs7,500 and Rs2,250 allowances which, tagged as science and technology allowance and PhD allowances, were given earlier.

Moreover, the government announced a 100% raise in the pay of senior private secretaries, private secretaries and assistant private secretaries.

Like government employees, those who have retired from government departments will also get a 7.5% increase in their pensions and a raise of 25% in their medical allowance. The government will have to spend Rs46 billion more on account of raise in salaries and pensions.

The government also fixed minimum wage in the country at Rs13,000. The minimum wage was Rs12,000 in the outgoing year ending on June 30. The finance minister in his budget speech also claimed that the per capita income has risen by 9.3% after increasing from $1,384 to $1,512.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 6^th, 2015.