PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government in its annual budget for the year 2022-23 on Monday announced a raise of 15 percent in salaries and pensions of its employees.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Finance Minister, Taimur Saleem Jhagra in his budget speech announced 15 percent ad-hoc relief and the same raise in pension of the provincial employees.
The raise was apart from the DRA allowance for the employees from grade-1 to grade-19. For police officials of grade-7 to grade-16, the Risk Allowance has been equalized to DRA Allowance. Besides, the KP government also announced to raise the amount of ‘Shuhada Package’ of the martyrs.
Meanwhile, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government on Monday announced to regularize services of around 63,000 contract employees in the province.
Taimur Salim Jhagra said 100 percent increase in pension expenditure have been witnessed in last couple of years, adding expenditure of pensions, which was only one percent of total KP budget expenditure in 2003-04 i.e. Rs0.87 billion has jumped to 14.7percent i.e. Rs90 billion in 2021-22.
He said amendment in KP Civil Servant Act 1973 has been made under which contributory and provident funds were increased for newly recruited employees under contributory pension scheme under which either lump sum amount one time or long-term investment offer would be given to retired employees.
KP budget to bring about new era of development: CM
As many as services of 63,0000 employees would be regularized including 675 adhoc doctors from July 1, 2022, regularization of 58,0000 teachers and 4079 employees of 128 projects of erstwhile Fata during 2022-23.
The Minister claimed that tax rates of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Revenue Authority were lower than other provinces of Pakistan.
Meanwhile, the provincial revenue has been increased two and a half times in three years. According to budget documents Provincial revenues have exceeded Rs75 billion for the first time in history. The revenue has increased by a historic 122% in the last three years. In the last three years, KPRA has become the best revenue authority in the country.
The documents said record development expenditure of Rs260 billion was incurred in 2021-22. The rate of development expenditure in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is higher than Punjab and Sindh.
Various new laws have been formulated for financial reforms. Treasury Single Account introduced for better monitoring of public exchequer. With this system, inactive amounts of Rs100 billion lying in the accounts of various institutions were identified.
Various technical units such as debt management, corporate governance and risk management have been set up in the finance department to streamline financial and administrative affairs.
Due to the business friendly environment and facilities of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government, various international organizations are investing Rs86 billion.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022
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