LAHORE, April 3: Benevolent Fund grant allocations for the Punjab government employees have been increased to Rs1,055 million this year against Rs550 million disbursed last year.
Disclosing this here on Wednesday, BF in charge additional secretary Yaqub Zia said the grant allocations had been increased under the government policy to distribute the maximum possible amount deducted from the salaries of nearly 900,000 employees in the form of grants. The rates of grants were being raised substantially for the purpose, he said.
He said Rs505 million were proposed to be distributed among the gazetted officers this year against an expected deduction of Rs525 million from the salaries of 88,572 officers. Only Rs80 million had been disbursed among them against a recovery of Rs470 million last year.
He said the maximum allocation of Rs260 million had been made for the monthly grant provided to the needy officials. A sum of Rs15 million was proposed to be distributed in the form of marriage grants and Rs3.5 million for funeral grants. The allocation for scholarships for the children of the officers was Rs70 million.
Yaqub Zia said the deserving among the 744,868 non-gazetted employees were expected to receive Rs550 million in the form of grants against an expected contribution of Rs660 million to the BF. They received grants totalling Rs370 million against deductions of Rs540 million from their salaries.
He said the largest allocation of Rs520 million had been made for distribution of monthly grants among the non-gazetted employees followed by an allocation of Rs47.5 million for marriage grants. The allocations for scholarships for the children of the employees and funeral grants were Rs32.7 million and Rs30 million, respectively.
He said Rs10 million and Rs8.7 million allocated for sending the gazetted and non-gazetted employees on Haj would now be saved following the decision of Governor Khalid Maqbool not to utilize the BF for the purpose. It could now be utilized for providing retirement grants to the employees.