PESHAWAR: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s wage and pension spending grew outrageously in the last 13 years with the pay bill likely to go up by 541 per cent and pension’s by 951 per cent between 2011-12 and 2023-24.

The figures contained in a spending plan presentation given to the caretaker cabinet by the finance department revealed that the province’s pay bill stood at Rs86 billion in 2011-12 and would reach Rs487 billion in 2023-24 from the current fiscal after a surge of Rs115 billion.

Similarly, the province’s wage bill grew by Rs40 billion in 2021-22 and by Rs58 billion in 2022-23.

The presentation showed that the mass regularisation of employees due to the Fata-KP merger as well as payments to project employees was the major contributor to the massive wage spending.

Finance dept tells cabinet that salary bill up by 541pc, pension’s by 951pc since 2011-12

In 2021, around 2,200 Levies and Khasadar personnel were absorbed in the province’s police, while 4,079 people working on 136 projects in tribal districts were regularised in January 2022.

Strangely, only 17pc of the regularised employees had the domiciles of tribal districts.

The presentation, a copy of which is also available with Dawn, revealed that in July 2022, the then Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf government had regularised 56,000 teachers who were hired through the National Testing Service in its tenure, while in the same month, around 700 ad hoc doctors were also regularized.

It also disclosed that the provincial government gave “generous upgradation since 2015 creating a mismatch in service structure with other provinces.”

According to the presentation, the government had given multi-step post upgradation to computer operators, junior clerks, superintendents, stenographers, primary school teachers, nurses, paramedics and medical technicians.

A whopping number of 258,887 posts have been upgraded since 2013 when the PTI came to power in the province. The upgradation costs the province Rs10.9 billion per annum.

The figures showed that the 2018 regularisation of 5,456 project employees in settled areas cost Rs1.85 billion annually and the 2022 regularisation of 4,835 project employees from tribal districts around Rs1.1 billion per annum.

Besides, the provincial government also introduced special allowances at the rate of one or 1.5pc of the basic pay to the bureaucracy, planning and engineering cadres among others.

It also carried out multiple pay scale revisions with the most recent being in 2022. Similarly, 20pc disparity reduction allowance was given to employees in 2021 and 25pc in 2022.

In addition, the annual ad hoc relief allowances, often more than those announced by the federal government, were also announced by the provincial government.

The provincial government also made a massive increase in house rent allowance for its employees in 2021.

On the other hand, it has created 229,837 posts since 2013.

As for the province’s pension bill, it was Rs16 billion in 2011-12 and will reach Rs126 billion in 2023-24 with an increase of Rs16 billion compared with the outgoing year’s spending.

Meanwhile, the caretaker cabinet was also briefed about cost reduction measures to create fiscal space, including outsourcing and abolition of all posts in BPS 1-6 and golden handshake of Class-IV employees in the 50-plus age bracket.

Officials also informed cabinet members about several other measures meant to create fiscal space of Rs75 billion in the short term.

Published in Dawn, June 21st, 2023