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ISLAMABAD:
In its written reply, the Communications Ministry has told the upper house of parliament that the Postal Life Insurance Company has 33,830 pending claims and outstanding claims amounting to Rs 8,165 crore.
The Senate session resumed on Thursday under the chairmanship of Vice President Syedal Khan. During question hour, Senator Shahadat Awan sought further clarification on a question related to postal life insurance.
The ministry said that against a budget demand of Rs 8,400 crore for the fiscal year 2025-26, only Rs 3,000 crore was approved, a figure that is grossly insufficient to settle insurance claims.
Among the plaintiffs are retirees and widows. Delays, the response notes, damage public trust and amount to a failure to comply with legal obligations.
The ministry requested an additional Rs 6 billion in the fiscal year 2025-26 budget to clear the backlog, but the request was not approved in full. Only Rs 3,000 crore was released, of which Rs 2,750 crore has already been utilized.
Once the remaining amount is exhausted, the ministry will request the Finance Ministry to release Rs 6.4 billion in unallocated funds. In his response, Communications Minister Aleem Khan accepted that this was government incompetence and negligence.
“People were promised their money, but they have not paid it. We wrote to the Ministry of Finance to release the funds, and today we again ask that the money be released. “These funds are not with us; They are in the Ministry of Finance. Every year we must approach them to release funds.
