ISLAMABAD, Sept 13: Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz's cabinet members would cost the national exchequer an amount of over Rs175 million annually in terms of salaries , perks and privileges, a document of the establishment division circulated to all ministries reveals.

According to conservative estimates prepared in the light of the document, the annual expenditure of 33 federal ministers and three advisers to the prime minister would be about Rs108 million and Rs65 million would be spent annually on 26 state ministers.

Accordingly, a federal minister or an adviser would cost the exchequer Rs3 million a month while each state minister would cost Rs2.5 million. The document reveals that it would cost the government an additional burden of about Rs90.85 million per annum on account of salaries and other perks and privileges of the newly-appointed federal and state ministers in the expanded cabinet.

Meanwhile, an official source told Dawn that the cabinet division had refused to provide vehicles to the new federal and state ministers and directed all concerned ministries to purchase the same from their own resources.

The source said the concerned ministries were purchasing 1600cc cars costing at least about Rs1.2 million each for the new cabinet members. Under this head, 36 new cars are being purchased at a cost of Rs43.20 million.

Under special expenditure, new federal and state ministers would get Rs100,000 for purchase of furniture for their houses, Rs50,000 for office furniture, Rs100,000 for renovation of their offices, Rs25,000 for installation of telephone exchange in their residences and Rs5,000 as equipment allowance.

Under the head of running cost, each minister would get monthly salary of Rs40,000 while each state minister would get Rs37,000 per month. An amount of Rs45,000 would be given to each minister by way of house rent while the house rent for each state minister would be Rs40,000.

The ministers as well as the state ministers are entitled to have a personal staff of five officials that includes a private secretary (an officer of BS-17), a personal assistant (an officer of BS-14), a stenographer (BS-14) a qasid (BS-1) and a naib qasid (BS-1).

Similarly, the new cabinet members would be provided a personal assistant and a telephone operator in their houses. The salary of their personal staff members would be over Rs70,000 per month.

However, the source said the new ministers had demanded more staff and servants for their houses. The other expanses of each minister are stated to be over Rs300,000 per month as they are entitled to have no limit on subscribers trunk dialling (STD) telephones in their houses and offices.

According to the document, they are entitled to have STD telephone facility in case they stay in another cities of the country or abroad. In case of travelling by road, the ministers are entitled to have travelling allowance (TA) of Rs3 per kilometre if they go beyond the radius of eight kilometre from their offices.

The document said the federal and state ministers would be provided a facility of club class in case of travelling abroad by air and if they travelled within the country, they would get a free air ticket of economy class.

In case of travelling by train, they would be provided a saloon or separate coupe with four berths. The source said there would be a lot of hidden expenditure and overhead costs of the federal and state ministers which would be assessed at the time of auditing.