Selected civil servants in Punjab given 150 percent salary raise

ISLAMABAD: Four months after the highly controversial raise given to the political elite of the Punjab inviting the ire of prime minister, the Buzdar government raised by 150 percent the running basic salary of provincial bureaucratic elite — this time without consulting the provincial assembly.

Sources in the Prime Minister’s Office told The News that Prime Minister Imran Khan is being told about the raise in the name of 'executive allowance'. 

The beneficiaries predominately belong to the ex-DMG (now Pakistan Administrative Service) and ex-PCS (presently called Provincial Management Service).

Interestingly, this phenomenal raise was approved by the provincial cabinet and notified on July 29 within weeks after the Punjab Assembly passed the provincial budget.

Usman Buzdar-led cabinet of the province, which has over two million employees, granted this huge raise to the selected class of 1,700, ignoring all others including professors, teachers, doctors, engineers, civil servants not belonging to the services now treated as “elite”- PAS at federal level and PMS in Punjab.

The posting earmarked for the 'executive allowance' include almost all posts of provincial secretaries, additional chief secretaries, members of Board of Revenue, additional secretaries, deputy secretaries, section officers, commissioners, deputy commissioners, assistant commissioners, revenue officials and special judicial magistrates.

The effort in choosing the posts for the hefty 'executive allowance' clearly seems to benefit the officers belonging to PAS and PMS. It is also relevant to mention here that all those who were involved in the initiation and processing of the finance department’s summary, are the beneficiary of this raise.