The Sindh government has approved an increase in pensions of government servants.
The employees who have retired before 2001 would get a 20 per cent increase in their pensions whereas those after 2001 a 15 per cent increase.
Allah Bachayo Memon, a spokesman for the chief minister, told The News on Wednesday that the chief minister had approved two summaries at a meeting on Tuesday, one about increasing salaries and the other about increasing pensions.
Another official told The News that the increase in the amount of pension would cost the provincial exchequer several billion rupees as there were estimated to be 120,000 retired Sindh government employees.
This figure did not include those of local governments and autonomous bodies.
The chief minister, who is also in charge of the Finance Ministry, had announced a 50 per cent increase in the salaries of government servants in his budget speech.
He, however, had not said anything about whether the government intended to give some relief to the pensioners or not.
This had made the retired employees a bit restless since the other three provinces had announced an increase in pensions.
Some of the legislators had criticised this decision in the budget session.
The chief minister, while summing up the budget debate, had said then that an increase in pensions would further increase the deficit in the province’s budget. However, he had formed a committee to look into the matter.
