ISLAMABAD  - The Federal government on Monday has unveiled its new austerity plan, as it imposed ban on the purchase of new vehicles, new recruitments and restricting the official lunches and dinners in a bid to control the soaring expenditures.
The Finance Ministry through a notification has announced the five points austerity plan for the ongoing fiscal year 2014-15 in a bid to control the soaring expenditures of the country that would be implemented immediately. The government's plan has apparently would have least impact on the economy.
"There will be complete ban on purchase of all type of vehicles both for the current as well as development expenditures except operational vehicles of the law enforcing agencies", stated the latest austerity plan of the incumbent government. The government has imposed ban on recruiting new people in the public departments. "Creating of new posts will be banned except those required for development projects and approved by the competent authority", said the austerity plan.
Meanwhile, the government has taken some cosmetics measures in the austerity plan that would not have major impact on reducing the country's soaring expenditures. The government has directed that entitlement of periodical, magazines etc of all officers would remain restricted to only one daily newspaper.
Similarly, the incumbent government has also decided to restrict the official lunches and dinners. However, the government in its austerity measures did not give any limit of the official lunches and dinners. "Principal Accounting officers will ensure rationalisation of utility bills while remaining within the available as no re-appropriation will be authorised to/from utilisation", stated the fifth and last point of the government's austerity plan for the ongoing fiscal year 2014-15.
The government has directed all the ministries and divisions to circulate the above instructions to all concerned for strict compliance.  It is worth mentioning here that PML-N government after coming into powers on June 5, 2013 had decided to curtail the expenditures of the ministries/ divisions by 30 percent excluding debt servicing, defence, pay and allowances, subsidies and grants.