KARACHI - Sindh Finance Department has showed reluctance to raise the salaries of police at par with their counterparts in Punjab owing to battered financial position of the province, sources told The Nation here Wednesday. At present, the salaries and other perks and privileges of the Sindh police are much below than those of the Punjab police. Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gillani has already instructed the provincial government for raising the salaries of Sindh police officials to bring them at par with Punjab police. Though, making announcement for raising salaries of Sindh police was an easy thing for the top brass of the country, but, according to sources, its implementation would require huge amounts of money. A senior official at the Sindh Finance Department said that implementation of PMs order for increase the pay of Sindh police would disturb the provincial governments budget. He added that at least Rs2.5 billion to Rs3 billion extra money would be required annually to raise the salaries of Sindh police in order to bring them at par with the Punjab police. But, the official pointed out, this financial implication would change the entire mechanism of expenditures as well as the Sindh budget. He, however, did not reject the implementation of PMs order but termed it difficult for finance department to raise Sindh polices salaries at this juncture. Stating the difficulties, he said the possibility of new National Finance Commission Award had vanished as no dialogue for distribution of resources under NFC Award was in sight at the federal government level. He said provinces would get their share of resources under old NFC Award, announced by former President Pervez Musharraf. Sindh finance department has also started budget preparations on existing NFC award formula, he said and maintained that at this juncture, any increase in the salaries of Sindh police would be a huge financial burden on the provincial exchequer. He further said the finance department had sought the details of salaries including various allowances being paid at present to Punjab police. Meanwhile, the first meeting of Pay and Pension Committee was held under its Chairman Dr Ishrat Hussain, the other day in Islamabad. Federal and provincial Finance Secretaries also participated in the meeting. Keeping in view the current economic situation of the country, the meeting discussed various options for increasing the salaries of govt employees, but it could not take any decision in this regard, sources said. According to sources, Chairman of Committee sought details about number of govt employees grade-wise. The second meeting of the Committee was scheduled to hold on 16th July 2009.