Punjab freezes recruitments to surmount economic challenge.

Byline: Mansoor Malik

LAHORE -- The Punjab government has plans to freeze recruitment against all seats vacant for the last two years except in health and police departments besides rationalising the new recruitments in the upcoming budget for financial year 2020-21 to meet the challenges owing to the ravages of lockdown.

Though the government was suggested to impose 10 per cent salary cut for three months for officers of BS-18 to BS-22, the proposal could not get through and a decision was taken not to cut salaries of the government employees. The government, however, decided not to increase the salaries and pensions.

Sources say the Punjab government intends moving away from subsidy culture and save Rs38 billion during the next financial year. It intends to set aside Rs98 billion for Covid-19-related expenditure. The break up of Rs98 billion shows Rs10 billion for new recruitments in health departments; Rs35 billion for 20 per cent of the existing workforce in health department; Rs13 billion for Covid-19 specific block allocations on current side; Rs30 billion for economic stimulus package for micro, small and medium enterprises; and Rs10 billion for tax relief package.

In order to fine-tune the upcoming budget for 2020-21 ahead of the Punjab Assembly budget session on Monday, the Punjab government has called the provincial cabinet meeting in the morning to deliberate on and give a go-ahead for annual budget for the financial year 2020-21 and supplementary budget statement for 2019-20.

Chief Minister Usman Buzdar has also called the PTI Provincial Parliamentary Party meeting soon after the cabinet meeting to formulate strategy with regard to the Punjab Assembly budget session.

According to the budget estimates, the Punjab government expects its revenue of Rs2.241 trillion against current fiscal budget estimates of Rs2.3 trillion. It has estimated expenditure to the tune of Rs1.779 trillion leaving Rs462 billion resources available for the Annual Development Programme. However, the government wants to allocate Rs337 billion for ADP and keep Rs125 billion as Provincial Surplus under the IMF Programme.

Estimates presented to the chief minister suggest that the government has not agreed to the budget demands of the primary health, specialised health, school education and police departments...