PESHAWAR - Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has decided to announce 15 and 25 per cent increase in government employees salaries and pensions respectively in the budget for fiscal year 2011-12. Official sources said that ANP-led coalition government in the province would announce budget on June 12 next. This time the total outlay is expected to be more than Rs 300 billion. There has been an unprecedented increase in the prices of basic commodities like sugar, flour, maze, electricity, gas and other daily use stuff, due to which, it has become very difficult for the common man especially the salaried class to afford food items for their family, they said. Thus, the provincial government has been left with option no other than to announce 15 and 25 per cent increase in pays and pensions of government employees in the fiscal budget for the year 2011-12, which, Provincial Finance Minister would unveil on June 12 in the Provincial Assembly. So far, almost all the government departments have completed necessary work like proposals, assessment, demands and preparation of the budget. The sources said that despite the tight fiscal position, the provincial government would bear Rs7 billion in head of increase in salaries and pensions, as at present over 3,50,000 employees are getting salaries from provincial kitty. In order to increase the salaries and pensions of government employees in coming budget, a joint meeting of the officials of finance, establishment and others departments was held here at the Secretariat, where it was firmly decided to have an increase in pay and pension for salaried class. The official sources said that the expected increase in pension was nothing as compared to the price-hike which is the worse ever in the recent past. They said that first at Federal level no increase in pay and pension was under consideration, but now the Federal Government has also made its mind to announce increase for government employees, which, would be followed by the provincial governments as well.