Budget 2011-12 unveiled with incentives for working class

Federal Minister for Finance Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh on Friday unveiled the federal budget for the Fiscal Year 2011-12 with an outlay of Rs 2,767 billion showing an increase of 14.2 percent against last year. It offers a raft of incentives to the government employees including pensioners and gives top priority to increasing economic growth for generating more job opportunities.
Presenting the budget for 2011-12 in the National Assembly, the minister expressed the government’s resolve to bring down fiscal deficit to 4 percent, bringing inflation down to single digit, enhancing resources to meet the development requirements for the socio-economic development of the country. He said that the government in the outgoing budget approved 50 percent adhoc relief to its employees besides ensuring their medical allowances and pension.
Despite the difficult economic situation, the government was fully aware of problems of the government employees, he said. In this regard, the government in the national budget 2011-12 has also taken a number of measures and proposed a 15 percent increase in pension of those government employees, who had retired on July 1, 2002 and onwards while for those pensioners who had retired on June 30, 2002 or before would be given 20 per cent raise in the pension with effect from July 1, 2011.
Similarly, he said that it has been proposed that the government employees from Grade 1 to 15 will be given 25 per cent raise in their conveyance allowance in the budget. He said that all civil and armed forces employees irrespective of their station of duty would get the allowance according to its rate. The government in the budget has proposed to increase different allowances of the government from grade 1-15, he said.
The minister said that in the Budget 2011-12 it is proposed that adhoc relief allowance given to the government employees upto July 2009 will be merged in Basic Pay Scales of 2008 and new pay scales are being proposed in the budget. He said that for the employees of grade 20 to Grade 22 the government in the budget has proposed to compulsory monetization of their transport facility.
The Finance Minister said that for the reduction of government expenditures, it is necessary to review and know which public sector expenditures were vital for the welfare of the people. In this regard, he said that a committee is being set up which will overview all the expenditures and submit its recommendations in this regard. At public sector departments, there are distortions in the salaries and to remove this problem all the system in this regard is being reformed and another commission is being set up in this regard.