The Ministry of Finance has started issuing instructions to the Secretary Establishment Division to all Ministries, Divisions and Government Departments.

 Due to the Right Sizing Agreement with the World Bank, the Federal Government has started the process of eliminating thousands of vacancies from one to 16 grades have done.

 The Ministry of Finance directed the Secretary Establishment Division to take action as per the decision of the Cabinet Implementation Committee to fill the vacancies of Grade One to 16 in all Ministries, Divisions and Government Departments for more than a year.

 According to the report, the decision is part of the government's commitment to restructuring and sizing the federal government with international lenders, including the World Bank, in order to control the costs to the civilian government.

 Imran Khan and the World Bank want the government machinery to be in the right size and smart to keep unnecessary spending in check.

 At present, 680,000 vacancies have been sanctioned in the federal government, but more than 80,000 of them have been vacant for more than a year.

 In a letter to the Establishment Division, the finance ministry said that the number of federal government employees has increased over the past decade.

 Due to this, the annual salary bill has tripled and the pension bill has become unmanageable. It is to be noted that the pension bill of the federal government is estimated to be Rs. 470 billion in the current financial year. 

 The total expenditure of the federal government during the current financial year is estimated to be Rs. 475 billion as compared to Rs. 370 billion for the pension of military officers.

 Officials are convinced that "the structure of the federal government is uneven and 95 per cent of the employees are in grades one to 16, which accounts for 85 per cent of the salary bill."

 

 On the other hand, the World Bank believes that these support staff should not exceed 50% of the total number of modern government machinery. 

In this regard, Dr. Ishrat Hussain, Advisor to Prime Minister Imran Khan on Simplicity and Institutional Reforms, said that There is a gap of 12 to 13% between the actual number of approved posts and the number of employees working on them.

 This means that 84 to 85 per cent of the approved posts are filled while the remaining posts are vacant. Dr. Ishrat Hussain further said that 71 thousand posts of these grades have been lying vacant for a period of 2 to 3 years.

 Decided to freeze vacancies. He said that there would be no more recruitment for these posts but the posts of Grade One to 16 would be increased in important public services such as social show. 

He further clarified that the posts of teachers, nurses, paramedics and police should not be filled. Not only will it be done but it will be increased.