ISLAMABAD: The government is working on different proposals for salary increases in the range of 10 to 15 percent for public sector employees in the upcoming budget for 2024-25. Amid the wish of the government to strike a deal with the IMF under Extended Fund Facility (EFF) at a range of $6 billion, the government will have to demonstrate its political will to place stringent fiscal measures including raising revenues of both FBR tax revenues and non-tax revenues as well as restricting the expenditures side.

The government is mulling over the options to fix the FBR tax revenue target of over Rs12.5 trillion in the coming budget. On the salaries front, the Ministry of Finance wants to raise the salary by just 10 percent. Still, there might be some pressures so there might be a fiscal adjustment to jack it up to 2.5 percent or a maximum of 5 percent to increase the salary increase in the range of 12.5 or 15 percent in the next budget.

There is another proposal under consideration to jack up monetisation of cars for higher grade officers of grades 20, 21, and 22 in the range of 20 to 25 percent. The grade 20 officers have been getting monetization of cars in the range of Rs67,000 per month, grade 21 officers in range of Rs77,000 per month and grade 22 officers of Rs87,000 per month. Now it is being considered that it might be jacked keeping in view inflationary pressures. The officers who are enjoying both cars and monetization amount argued that since inception of this policy in 2012 it was never jacked up.

Top official sources confirmed to The News that the government is all set to introduce pension reforms in the next budget for 2024-25. The proposal is also under consideration to slap tax on pensioners who are drawing pension of over Rs100,000 per month. It is likely that the government may introduce different slabs for higher bracket pensioners from the next budget.