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ISLAMABAD:
In its written reply, the Ministry of Communications has told the Upper House in Parliament that the Postal Life Insurance Company has 33,830 pending claims and outstanding claims of Rs 8,165 million.
The Senate session resumed on Thursday with Deputy Speaker Syedal Khan in the chair. During Question Hour, Senator Shahadat Awan sought further clarification on a matter relating to postal life insurance.
The ministry said against a budget requirement of Rs8,400 million for FY 2025-26, only Rs3,000 million was approved – a figure grossly inadequate to clear insurance claims.
Among the plaintiffs are retired persons and widows. The delays, the response noted, damage public confidence and constitute a failure to meet legal obligations.
The ministry requested an additional Rs6 billion in the 2025-2026 budget to clear the backlog, but the request was not fully approved. Only Rs3 billion was released, of which Rs2.75 billion has already been utilised.
Once the remaining amount is exhausted, the ministry will request the Ministry of Finance to release Rs6.4 billion in unallocated funds. In his reply, Communications Minister Aleem Khan accepted that it was the government’s incompetence and negligence.
“People were promised their money but they have not been paid. We wrote to the Ministry of Finance to release funds and today we are again asking for the money to be released. “These funds are not with us; they are with the Ministry of Finance. Every year we have to approach them to release funds.
