Cops’ salaries may be doubled soon

[LRE]

Cops’ salaries may be doubled soon

* IG wants field officers’ salaries at par with those of traffic wardens and NH&MP officers

By Anwer Hussain Sumra

LAHORE: A committee formed to decide the pay raises of policemen is expected to propose that the officials’ basic pays be doubled and they be given fixed 20-day travelling allowances/daily allowances (TA/DA), an official of the Home Department told Daily Times on Tuesday.

The committee is likely to submit its recommendations to the chief minister (CM) next week and if the proposals are approved, the provincial exchequer will face an additional burden of at least Rs 9 billion.

Meanwhile, the Prisons Department has also demanded that they be given similar raises because it was also a disciplined force and helped uphold the law by keeping criminals detained. The 11-member committee met last week to discuss the policemen’s pay raises. The provincial Law and Parliamentary Affairs minister chaired the meeting.

An official privy to the meeting told Daily Times that the members had noticed a difference in salaries within the police force, such as the traffic wardens, National Highways and Motorway Police (NH&MP) patrol officers and field policemen. The inspector general (IG) of police, also a member of the committee, told the meeting that the traffic wardens and the NH&MP patrol officers were being given almost double the salaries of field policemen. He said the wardens and NH&MP officers were getting double the basic pays compared to field officers as well as fixed 20-day TA/DAs.

The official quoted the IG as saying that the additional benefits would help end corruption among the field police force, improve the policemen’s performance and boost their morale. The official said the minister was in favour of the IG’s arguments and had said that concrete suggestions should be made to improve the policemen’s conduct, performance and standards before a final decision on the raises were made.

Sources in the Police Department said that the IG would file his suggestions soon in order to get the raises as soon as possible.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp...008_pg13_2