PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government is likely to launch the Retirement Benefit and Death Compensation Scheme for its employees soon.

The scheme will replace current system, wherein government employees were insured with the State Life Insurance Corporation of Pakistan (SLICP).

An official in the know told Dawn that currently, the government was in agreement with the SLICP for the insurance of its employees, wherein a certain amount was deducted from their salary and the finance department contributed that to the group insurance.

He said the SLICP paid compensation only in case of death or permanent disability up to 65 years.

The official said sometimes ago, the finance department had conducted a study, which suggested that by nominally increasing the insurance deduction and investing that money on its own, the government could give the same benefit to all government employees without any restriction.He said in order to follow that model, the government introduced the Retirement Benefit and Death Compensation Act in November 2104.

`The lawmakers amended portions of the act to increase benefits to retiring employees under the influence of some senior officials, he said, adding that the finance department refused to start the scheme saying it doesn`t have sufficient funds to give to retiring employees as benefits.

The official said after the complaints of finance department, the act was redone after which the cabinet approved its draft in March this year.

He said under the existing insurance policy, the government servants contributed monthly fixed amount to the group insurance and the SCILP paid compensation only in case of death/permanent disability up to 65 years.

The official said the new scheme would ensure payments to all government employees without any age restrictions.

The documents available with Dawn says that existing group insurance scheme had no provision for retirement benefits, reliving of services and death after 65 years, while in contrast, the proposed RB&DC has provisions for retirement benefits, reliving of service due to any reason and in service death.

The document said that a board of management headed by the chiefsecretary and 10 members including departmental secretaries, account general KP and two representatives from civil servants has been notified on June 1.

The BoM will settle claims of retired employees, sanction grant to the civil servants or their families, invest surplus money in profitable ventures, control, supervise and administer the assets of the fund, determine and revise the rates of contribution and amounts of benefits and any other matter related to funds.

It will constitute a management committee headed by the finance secretary and consisting of administration secretary, two civil service representatives and board secretary as members.

The management committee will ensure the efficient and speedy disposal and incurrence of expenditure and perform such action and exercise power as delegated by the board.

Under the act, the government employees of BPS 1-4 will contribute monthly deduction of Rs300 per month, BPS 5-10 Rs450, BPS 11-15 Rs600, BPS 16 Rs650, BPS 17 Rs900, BPS 18 Rs1,350, BPS19 Rs1,600, and BPS 20 and above Rs2,000 per month.

As for the disbursement of compensation, employees of BPS 1-4 will getRs200,000,BPS5-10`sRs300,000, BPS 11-15`s Rs400,000, BPS 16`s Rs450,000, BS 17`s Rs600,000, BPS 18`s 875,000, BPS 19`s Rs1.05 million and BPS 20`s above Rs1.25 million.