ISLAMABAD: It has been learned that strong resistance from all important and influential places is the key reason why the proposal to raise the retirement age of government employees has failed.
This plan to raise the retirement age for all public sector workers, including those in the military and the civil service, is not going to happen anytime soon. It is believed that additional research must be done before making a definitive decision on this matter.
But Islamabad is planning to gradually eliminate ministries of devolved topics, and a proposal to persuade the provinces to shoulder more of the cost of social protection programs like the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) is being considered.
How the government approaches the Higher Education Commission’s (HEC) budgetary allocation in the process of rationalizing expenditures is still to be seen. To rationalize unchecked government spending, the government established a powerful committee led by Minister of Finance Muhammad Aurangzeb. It was anticipated that the committee would not finalize its conclusions until the budget was announced. However, as far, nothing has come of it. In order to complete its recommendations by the end of July or the first week of August, the committee has convened multiple times. Around August 14, the government might make its results public.
