Cash-strapped govt notifies hefty hikes in salaries, pensions

The government on Wednesday notified 15 per cent increase in pensions and 20-25pc increase in salaries of the public servants with effect from July 1. In a series of notifications issued by the Ministry of Finance, the government also restricted public servants from drawing more than Rs1 million per annum on account of their membership on the boards of directors of various corporate entities. These employees would be entitled to retain a maximum of Rs1m per year, deposit any access amount in the government treasury, and submit their report to the MoF. Under one of the notifications, the government allowed Ad hoc Relief Allowance-2024 (ARA) at the rate of 25pc of running basic pay for basic pay scale (BPS) 1 to 16 and 20pc for BPS 17 to 22 for all the federal government employees including armed forces personnel, civil armed forces and civil employees as well as the civilians paid from Defence Estimates.