The Government of Sindh has decided to raise the utility allowances of government officers in the provincial Secretariat and Assembly.
The utility allowance of the officers of the Basic Pay Scale (BPS) 1 to 8 has been increased from Rs. 4,000 to Rs. 6,000. Similarly, the allowance of the BPS 09-15 officers has been increased from Rs. 6,000 to Rs 9,000, while that of the BPS 16-17 employees has been raised from Rs. 10,500 to Rs. 22,000.
The provincial government had originally started granting utility allowances to government employees in response to the soaring inflation last year, and Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah had made the decision based on a suggestion by Mir Nadir Ali Khan Magsi.
In other news, the Government of Sindh has reportedly frozen the development budget of all the districts in the province, except seven of Karachi’s districts, to mitigate the financial struggles of the province in the wake of the heavily destructive monsoon floods.
Its Department of Planning and Development has issued a notification to all the relevant authorities in this regard. The government had allocated Rs. 332 billion for 4,158 projects across the province.
The frozen funds will now be used for flood relief and rescue operations.
