June 2, 2006	Friday	Jumadi-ul-Awwal 5, 1427

Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window).

ISLAMABAD, June 1: The government is planning to offer three major relief packages to people in the next budget to fight the growing price hike.

Sources told Dawn that a high-level meeting chaired by Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz on Thursday agreed to provide ‘reasonable increase’ in salaries of the public servants by resuming their dearness allowance which was merged in salaries last year.

Similarly, the meeting decided to extend more subsidy, especially on food items, and enhancing the number of small loans on marginal interest to needy and deserving people.

The sources said that details of dearness allowance were expected to be finalized by officials concerned in a day or so.

Participants of the meeting were of the view that people needed to be provided relief in the new budget and the issue was more important in the context of general elections to be held in 2007. The sources said that Mr Aziz told the meeting that he had discussed various relief measures with President Gen Pervez Musharraf, who was concerned about the economic problems of people.

Last year the government had provided 17 to 23 per cent increase in salaries of government employees and the meeting discussed what more could be offered in the next budget.

“We cannot give an exact figure about the percentage of salary increase as the issue might be finalized at the last minute in the cabinet meeting,” a source said.

He said that most of the budget figures relating to GDP growth, inflation, budget deficit and Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) had already been known to the people. “But now all exercises are being done what could be offered to people in the new budget especially the poorer classes,” he said, adding that the CBR was expected to collect Rs700 to Rs800 billion during the next financial year which would help the government to undertake more development projects for the welfare of the people.

According to sources, the prime minister said that he was not against extending more facilities including salary increase to legislators, but a common man at present deserved more sympathy and support of the government than anybody else.

The meeting was attended by Prime Minister’s Adviser on Finance Dr Salman Shah, Minister for Information Mohammad Ali Durrani, Labour Minister Ghulam Sarwar Khan, Minister for Information Technology Owais Leghari, State Minister for Finance Omar Ayub Khan, Planning Commission Deputy-Chairman Dr Akram Sheikh, Finance Secretary Tanwir Ali Agha, Central Board of Revenue (CBR) Chairman Abdullah Yousaf and Adviser to the ministry of finance Dr Ashfaque Hasan Khan.