report in Dawn, January 2nd, 2021
MUZAFFARABAD: Alongside the grant of “superior executive allowance” to chief secretary and inspector general of police (IGP), the PML-N government in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) has also pampered administrative secretaries with grant of a monthly “executive allowance”, it emerged on Friday.
A notification to this effect was issued by the finance department on Nov 25, the same day when the notification about the grant of superior executive allowance of Rs400,000 and Rs375,000 per month to the chief secretary and the IGP, respectively, was issued by it.
However, both notifications were kept secret instead of their circulation to different offices, for fear of criticism from the masses.
Even officials of the finance department were in the dark about the issuance of the notifications, until both were leaked through social media, one after the other at a gap of one week.
“Rumours are doing rounds that a notification has also been issued to grant a similar allowance to secretaries, but we are not aware about it… If it has been issued, it has been restricted by the secretary to himself,” an official in the finance department told Dawn on condition of anonymity after the first notification went viral on social media.
The chief secretary and IGP are commonly referred to as ‘lent officers’ because they are “loaned” by the federal government to the AJK government under the Karachi agreement of 1949 for a period that rarely exceeds three years. The finance secretary is also a ‘lent officer’.
“The government has been pleased to accord approval for grant of executive allowance to the administrative secretaries to the government at the rate of 1.5 times of their initial relevant basic pay scale of 2017 with effect from December 1, 2020,” read the second notification which too went viral on social media on Friday.
Though the craftily chosen content of the notification did not give any indication about the amount of the allowance, it was, however assumed, to be in the range of 150,000 to 200,000 per month.
Listing some conditions, the notification further stated that the executive allowance would be discontinued after transfer of a secretary against any other post and would not be admissible for more than one post, against the officer on special duty (OSD) posts, during extraordinary leave, study leave, long leave for more than 120 days, training abroad or suspension from service.
The officers drawing superior executive allowance would not be entitled to claim this allowance, it added.
https://www.dawn.com/news/1599171/top-bureaucrats-in-ajk-get-massive-increase-in-allowances
