Salary of some grade 20-22 officers raised by 35pc

ISLAMABAD: The budget for fiscal year 2021-22 passed by the National Assembly on Thursday raised by 35 percent the salary for BS-20 to BS-22 officers who don’t receive any additional allowance and were not given 25 percent disparity reduction allowance offered to BS-1 to BS19 officials in March this year.

This particular category of officers got the 10 percent raise given to all government employees in the budget besides having been allowed a 25 percent disparity reduction allowance which was not given to them in March this year. In March, following a protest from government employees, the government announced a 25 percent disparity allowance for BS-1 to BS-19 officials.

The government had announced a 10 percent ad hoc allowance for a salary increase in the budget and provided a 25 percent disparity reduction allowance from April 2021. The budget speech did not explicitly say that the 25 percent disparity reduction allowance was being extended to BS-20 to BS-22 officers too but the allocation for this particular purpose has been made in the budget as approved today by the National Assembly. According to sources, the cabinet had already given approval to extend the 25% disparity allowance to the selected class of BS-20 to BS-22 officers. It will cost the national exchequer Rs400 million which has been approved in the budget.

A notification issued on March 3, 2021 had announced the approval of the Disparity Reduction Allowance at the rate of 25 percent of the basic pay of Basic Pay Scales 2017 from March 1, 2021. It was said that this allowance would be admissible to civil employees in BPS 1-19 of the federal government, (including employees of the Federal Secretariat and attached departments), who have never been allowed additional allowance/ allowances equal to or more than 100% of the basic pay (whether frozen or not) or performance allowance with certain conditions. Now this allowance is available to BS-20 and BS-22 officers of the federal government who have never been allowed additional allowance in the past. Different sets of employees — including those serving in the Supreme Court, High Courts, National Accountability Bureau, Federal Bureau of Revenue, Federal Investigation Agency, Naya Pakistan Housing Authority, Prime Minister’s Office, President Secretariat etc — have been given additional raises from time to time in the past owing to which they are drawing much higher salaries than their contemporaries in other departments.

These special raises for employees of selected departments have totally distorted the basic pay scale system and caused resentment among the vast majority of government employees who were not given similar raises. Such has been the level of distortions that secretaries of the provincial departments, particularly those serving in Punjab and KP, started drawing salaries much higher than their seniors serving as secretaries in the federal government. Although the federal government has now given a 25 percent raise to those federal government employees who fall in the category of ‘have-nots’, yet the disparity in salaries is quite high and those serving in selected influential departments continue to draw far more than ordinary government servants. This issue has also been referred to the Pay and Pension Commission.