The FBR’s employees have written a letter to Senate Finance Committee for de-freezing their IJP allowance. They stated that government has once again rejected the FBR’s employees’ demand of de-freezing IJP allowance, which was distressing for them. “The longstanding demand of de-freezing of the IJP allowance was once again overlooked. It is stated with deep regret that the employees of other departments of the federal government which include FIA, IB, Islamabad Capital Police and the latest being the Federal Secretariat have been awarded huge remunerations in the form of different allowances,” the letter stated.
In the light of above, the employees of the FBR presented the demands to do away the disparity as far as the salaries and emoluments are concerned. The demands included provision of special revenue allowance to officers of FBR (BPS 17-22) keeping in view FBR’s efforts in revenue collection, special fuel/conveyance allowance to officers (BPS 17 to 19) keeping in view the recent hike in fuel prices and de-freezing of IJP allowance of BPS 01-16 or provision of 100% of the basic salary by discontinuing the existing frozen IJP allowance.
It is to mention here that the employees of FBR put in their maximum efforts to meet the huge revenue targets being assigned to them. This is evident from the fact that when the rest of the country including federal and provincial departments were having 5 working days a week, FBR employees have for the last 6 months sacrificed their weekends and are attending offices 6 days a week. The employees of the FBR are and will remain dedicated to their job, as they always have been.
According to the FBR employees, the average salary of BPS-17 officer in FBR is around Rs84,000 per month including all allowances as against Rs1,55,000 per month in other departments like Federal Investigation Agency (FIA). They shared that their salaries have reached to only Rs84,000 per month from period 2018 to 2022 that also included ad-hok allowances, annual increments and IJP allowance, which has freeze at Rs16000 instead of Rs37270. They explained that inflation rate, dollar value and gold rate has increased massively in last several years.
However, if the demands listed above are not met, and are ignored in the current budget which is currently under discussion in the parliament, the FBR employees will be left with no option but to stage a peaceful protest. In order to do so, the employees of FBR will observe a pen down strike from 8:00 A.M. to 4:00 P.M. on June17, 2022. In case the demands still remain unattended, a pen down strike will be announced for an indefinite period.