The finance department of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has proposed an increase of 35% in the salaries of government employees between grades 1 to 16 and an increase of 30% for employees above grade 16 in the budget for the four months of the fiscal year 2023-24.

An increase of 17% in pensions for retired employees has also been proposed in the budget proposal document.

The budget proposals document suggested increasing the minimum wage from Rs26,000 to Rs32,000.

The caretaker government of KP is scheduled to present the budget on Tuesday (tomorrow) for the four months of the fiscal year 2023-24. The department proposed the allocation of Rs462.16 billion for the interim government’s four months’ expenditure.

Moreover, the proposed funds for the settled districts are to the tune of Rs402.61 billion, while Rs59.54 billion have been proposed for the merged districts.

The provincial finance department proposed Rs112.11 billion of funds allocation for the pending development projects of the province.

A total of Rs43.33 billion have been proposed for the annual development programme of settled districts, while Rs8.36 billion have been proposed for the local governments of the settled districts.

Likewise, an amount of Rs309.49 billion has been proposed for the current expenditure of the settled districts.

The department proposed Rs8.66 billion for the annual development programme of the merged districts.

A total of Rs192.97 billion has been proposed for government employees’ salaries and Rs42.36 billion for pensions.

The document also proposed an increase of 50% in the deputation allowance of government employees.

An increase of 100% has been proposed in the secretariat performance allowance, while a 100% increase in the conveyance for disabled employees was also proposed. The document proposed increasing the ration allowance of police officials.

A subsidy of Rs1 billion has been proposed for the Peshawar Bus Rapid Transit in the budget, while the document suggested restricting the purchase of government vehicles.

This comes after the federal government and Sindh government presented the budgets earlier this month.

Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah presented the provincial budget for the fiscal year 2023-24 in the Sindh Assembly on June 10. The total outlay of the budget stood at Rs2.24 trillion.

On June 9, Finance Minister Ishaq Dar presented the Finance Bill 2023-24 in the National Assembly announcing that the government has imposed no new taxes for the upcoming year.

Dar said the total outlay of the budget is Rs14.46 trillion. The finance minister said total current expenditure has been allocated Rs13,32 billion for FY23-24.