ISLAMABAD: The government has started working on the increase of salaries and pensions of federal government employees from 10 to 15 percent in the last budget 2017-18. The Ministry of Finance has proposed to enhance 10 percent expenditure of all ministries in the meeting of priority committee which was held previous month while three proposals have been presented to Regulation Wing of Ministry of Finance regarding increase of salaries of government employees. One proposal is to increase the salaries by 10 percent, second proposal is about 12.5 percent while third is 15 percent. The government has to bear the financial burden of some Rs three to 3.5 billion with the increase of one percent in the salaries of government employees. “The national exchequer would face the financial burden from Rs 35 to 45 billion if salaries were increased from 10 to 15 percent,” the officials added and maintained that no proposal is under consideration to review the pay scales of government employees or granting them ad-hoc allowance as the total cost of budget would be increased. The officials added that proposal to increase the medical allowance from grade 1 to 15 to Rs 2000 and the employees from grade 16 to 22 would get the medical allowance from Rs 6000 to Rs 12000 is also under consideration. The house rent is likely to revise by 45 percent of basic pay scales of 2015. Besides this, proposal to grant utility allowance as per criteria set by provincial governments is also under consideration, the sources concluded.