Government forms panel for review of pay, pension.

The federal government has constituted a Pay and Pension Commission to evaluate salary structures of the employees of the federal and provincial governments as well as the armed forces with a view to bringing some uniformity and review the need for further increase.

But it seems that the commission will not be able to finish its work before the next year's budget, as the government has not fixed any deadline the task. The terms of reference (ToRs) are also broad that may extend the work of the commission to months, if not a year.

The six-member commission will be headed by former finance secretary Abdul Wajid Rana. There is no equal representation of all the provinces despite its wide scope as almost all the members of the commission belong to Sindh.

The members are: Nazar Hussain Mahar, a retired bureaucrat, Dr Noor Alam, also a retired civil servant, Seema Kamil, President United Bank Limited, Zubyr Soomro, Chairman National Bank of Pakistan and Nausheen Ahmad, ICI Pakistan Limited.

The government has setup the commission at a time when it is under increasing pressure to increase the salaries by at least 100-150 percent and end discrimination in pays of various federal and provincial government departments.

The scope of the commission would include federal and provincial civil servants, other government servants, civilians paid from defence budget, all armed forces, civil armed forces and all employees of the public sector enterprises.

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