Financial constraint bars increase in Benevolent Fund: Aftab Sheikh

22 Oct, 2014

ISLAMABAD: Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Aftab Sheikh on Wednesday informed National Assembly that issue of withdrawal of paying academic fees to children of government employees cannot be addressed presently due to financial constraint.

Replying to a calling attention notice by MNAs Tariq Fazal Chaudhry, Naeema Kishwar and Asiya Nasir, the minister said, since the deductions from employees salaries are not increased the matter raised in the notice cannot be addressed.

The members had drawn the attention of the minister towards withdrawal of the facility of payment of academic fees etc out of Federal Government Benevolent Fund and Group Insurance Fund to the children of federal government employees studying for professional education in public sector universities.

He said the government is already running number of schemes out of the benevolent fund despite that it deducts just 2.4 percent from the basic salaries of the employees. Therefore, in present resources it is not possible to pay more than the present to the employees under the benevolent fund scheme.

He also mentioned to amount of payments to government employees under different schemes and said, with the increase of government employees the government has to bear extra financial burden. Furthermore, the education up to 10th class has already been declared as free while the government also provides text books and notebooks.

Aftab Sheikh further stated that if the federal government provides more funds, then the said scheme can be continued. Otherwise, deduction from their salaries will have to be increased which the government does not desire as it will put extra burden on employees.

Copyright APP (Associated Press of Pakistan), 2014

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