The government employees have rejected a 30% increase in their salaries as they continue to protest outside the Civil Secretariat in Lahore for the fifth straight day on Tuesday.

They burnt the initial basic scale notification. Footage showed protesting employees clapping as they described the 30% increase as “cruelty”.

There are two types of scale: running base scale and initial basic scale. According to the protesters, the increment was not made with respect to the staffers working on different pay scales.

The salary has been increased by the initial basic salary for everyone, including the staffers serving for 20 to 30 years whose salaries have shoot to hundreds of thousands. And they refuse the 30% increase in their pay scale.

Aaj News correspondent Ateeq Malik explained the situation as a person is appointed at 17-scale and his basic pay is Rs45,000. While a person of the same scale who is serving for 15 years, his basic salary has jumped to 125,000. But the basic pay of the 17-scale is Rs45,000. Now with the 30 per cent bump, protesters complain that the initial salary is Rs45,000

Now, with the new notification, there would be a 30% increase as per Rs45,000. So the same increment will be applied to the person having a salary of Rs100,000. In the past, the increment was given on the basis of the salary of a person respective to his salary scale.

Earlier in the day, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif talked to Punjab caretaker Chief Minister Mohsin Naqvi on the phone on Tuesday to discuss the salaries of government employees in the province.

The PM reportedly recommended that salaries and pensions in Punjab be raised by the same percentages as they had been done in the centre.

Naqvi assured the PM that he would take the matter to the Punjab cabinet.

Salaries for federal government employees were raised by 35% up to grade 16 and by 30% for the grades above. The increase was announced in the new fiscal year’s budget and was supposed to be made via an ad-hoc allowance.