ISLAMABAD: The Senate’s Committee on Communication on Thursday suggested that the federal government should start paying pension to retired Postal Services (PS) employees. Almost all departments get their pensions through AGPR while Postal Services had to do this from its own budget which made it impossible to spend money on other important facilities of the department. These views were expressed in a meeting of the body with Senator Daud Khan Achakzai in the chair. The committee also recommended the suggestion of enhancing postal tariff in light of growing inflation and printing costs. The body was briefed about the budget details of postal services for 2016-17 and 2017-18 and was told that the required budget for 2016-17 was Rs 20 billion, approved budget was Rs 16 billion while the expenditure amounted to Rs 20 billion. For financial year 2017-18 the required budget was stated to be Rs 23 billion while approved budget was Rs 17 billion. The meeting was told that additional expenditures are managed by supplementary grants. The meeting was attended by Senators Nighat Mirza, Sajjad Hussain Turi and Kamil Ali Agha. The Postal Services DG told the committee that 79.45% of the budget was spent on salaries, pensions and PM’s assistance package which leaves only 17.32% for operating expenses, 1.05% for physical assets, 0.11% for civil works and 1.24% for repair and maintenance. The meeting was also given a briefing on three new initiatives under the banner of reforming the work and scope of postal services which included mobile money transfer solutions, Pakistan Post Logistics Company and re-branding of Pakistan Post. The committee praised the work of postal services in the area of financial inclusion; a facility used aggressively worldwide. The body also asked for expediting the progress on the said facilities while making the process transparent and ensuring that the human resource of Postal Services is given training on the new mechanisms. Regarding computerisation of record in GPOs, the committee was told that online systems were now available at 23 GPOs and it would be available in 12 more GPOs by the end of this month. The Postal Services intended to complete the process of computerization of records in the GPOs by December this year and then the same mechanism for 3200 POs will be initiated. The committee members expressed their concerns regarding the delay and inability to simultaneously computerise the records across the country. The committee was also told that amendments in the Government Savings Banks Act, 1873 regarding nominee in case of death of investor in National Saving Schemes have been suggested to the Finance Division and after approval, they will be put in place. Published in Daily Times, September 8th 2017.