ECC approves increase in salaries for nurses and doctors

ISLAMABAD: Finance adviser Abdul Hafeez Shaikh approved the increment in salaries of the government’s nurses and doctors while chairing a session of the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) on Wednesday.

The economic committee approved the recommendations for increasing the salaries of nurses and doctors in Islamabad from June.

Moreover, the committee made various important decisions including another approval to acquire loans from finance and commercial banks for the due payment of the power sector. It has been decided to spend Rs166 billion allocated to clear the dues of the energy sector.

Six to eight per cent increase has been approved in term of margin for the oil marketing companies and petroleum dealers.

The ECC members have approved two supplementary grants to the defence ministry and two separate grants were sanctioned for Lok Virsa and Pakistan Nursing Council (PNC).

Read: ECC approves payment of June salary to Pakistan Steel employees

On October 31, the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the Cabinet had given a go-ahead for the release of 650,000 tonnes of wheat from PASSCO stocks to the provincial governments of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), Sindh and Balochistan.

The decision was taken at a meeting of the ECC held on Wednesday with Adviser to the Prime Minister on Finance & Revenue Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh in the Chair, said a press release.

The ECC took up the wheat situation in the country, particularly the rising trend in wheat prices, and approved a proposal by the Ministry of National Food Security and Research for release of 300,000 tonnes each to governments of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Sindh and 50,000 tonnes to the government of Balochistan.

The ECC also approved an amount of Rs 2.745 billion to be paid as PASSCO incidental charges at the ratio of 50:50 to be equally shared by the federal and respective provincial governments.