KARACHI, May 30: Thousands of civil servants and retired personnel of law-enforcement agencies as well as defence institutions will now pay the annual fee for the renewal of their arms licences, which they got without spending a single penny, it emerged on Monday.

Previously, such government servants and retired LEAs personnel got their arms licences without paying the fee. However, the Sindh government on Monday withdrew the facility.

A notification issued by the Sindh home department stated that in pursuance of the decision of the Sindh cabinet the policy of issuing arms licences without any fee to government servants stood abolished for all without any discrimination.

According to a spokesman for the home department, in Sindh so far 35,000 licences had been issued to the government servants under the rules.

This decision would generate an additional revenue of over Rs17 million a year.

The cabinet after revisiting its policy had decided to repeal the old rules and charge the licence fee onwards from every government servant, whether civil or in uniform, the spokesman added.

This decision would also be applicable to all those who were issued licences without charging any fee in the past at the time of renewal of their licences.