{"id":125706,"date":"2026-05-11T20:11:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T15:11:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/?p=125706"},"modified":"2026-05-11T20:11:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T15:11:13","slug":"pm-extends-austerity-drive-till-june-13-to-deal-with-impact-of-middle-east-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/2026\/125706\/","title":{"rendered":"PM extends austerity drive till June 13 to deal with impact of Middle East war"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>ISLAMABAD(National Times)-Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Monday extended the countrywide austerity drive till June 13.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Middle East war, which began with US-Israeli attacks on Iran on February 28, has given rise to a global oil crisis. In order to deal with the situation, the government had&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/1980219\/govt-announces-austerity-measures-to-brace-for-economic-impact-of-middle-east-war\">announced<\/a>&nbsp;unprecedented austerity measures on March 9.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A notification of the Cabinet Division, available with&nbsp;<em>Dawn<\/em>, said: \u201cThe prime minister, on consideration of the recommendations of the committee for monitoring and implementation of fuel conservation and additional austerity measures, has been pleased to extend the applicability of the following additional austerity measures up till 13th June, 2026 with immediate effect.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The measures extended included 50 per cent reduction in fuel allowance for official vehicles, with the exemption of operational vehicles such as ambulances and public buses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Other steps included the move to ground 60pc of official vehicles and a complete ban on foreign visits by ministers and government officials, excluding those as specified the last time, which were deemed essential for the country\u2019s interests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cOther additional austerity and fuel conservation measures, as notified from time to time vide this Division\u2019s notifications of even number, shall continue to remain in force over the periods specified in the respective notifications,\u201d the notification read.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cMeasures in the case of which no period or end date has been specified, shall remain applicable till further orders,\u201d it added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Among previously announced austerity measures, the working week for all government offices was reduced to four days \u2014 Monday to Thursday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, the additional holiday was not availed by banks. It did not apply to the agriculture and industrial sectors, or essential services such as hospitals and ambulance services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Under the measures, the salary of parliamentarians was to be cut by 25pc, while&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/1982016\">employees<\/a>&nbsp;of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and government-supervised institutions were to see their salaries cut by 5pc-30pc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Expenses of government departments were reduced by 20pc, along with a ban on purchasing vehicles, furniture, air conditioners and other items for government departments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>PM Shehbaz had tasked the premier had&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/1983012\">tasked<\/a>&nbsp;the Intelligence Bureau (IB) to carry out a third-party audit of the implementation of the austerity measures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On April 30, the premier had also decided to&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/1996417\">extend fuel subsidies<\/a>&nbsp;for motorcyclists, and public and goods transport by one month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The subsidies were part of the targeted relief&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/1985433\/subsidised-fuel-for-bikes-rickshaws-via-mobile-app\"><u>measures<\/u><\/a>&nbsp;announced for bikers, farmers and transporters to cushion the impact of global oil price shocks amid the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/live\/iran-israel-war\"><u>US-Israel war on Iran.<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ISLAMABAD(National Times)-Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Monday extended the countrywide austerity drive till June 13. The Middle East war, which began with US-Israeli attacks on Iran on February 28, has given rise to a global oil crisis. In order to deal with the situation, the government had&nbsp;announced&nbsp;unprecedented austerity measures on March 9. A notification of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":125707,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-125706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest_news","entry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>PM extends austerity drive till June 13 to deal with impact of Middle East war - Nation<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/2026\/125706\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"PM extends austerity drive till June 13 to deal with impact of Middle East war - Nation\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"ISLAMABAD(National Times)-Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Monday extended the countrywide austerity drive till June 13. The Middle East war, which began with US-Israeli attacks on Iran on February 28, has given rise to a global oil crisis. In order to deal with the situation, the government had&nbsp;announced&nbsp;unprecedented austerity measures on March 9. A notification of [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/2026\/125706\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Nation\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-05-11T15:11:11+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-05-11T15:11:13+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Untitled-design-22-5.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"670\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"370\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"humza Jahangir\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"humza Jahangir\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/2026\/125706\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/2026\/125706\/\",\"name\":\"PM extends austerity drive till June 13 to deal with impact of Middle East war - Nation\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/2026\/125706\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/2026\/125706\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Untitled-design-22-5.png\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-05-11T15:11:11+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-05-11T15:11:13+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/#\/schema\/person\/27efa35fa76e99f3ad7e7397d7332c16\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/2026\/125706\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/2026\/125706\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/2026\/125706\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Untitled-design-22-5.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Untitled-design-22-5.png\",\"width\":670,\"height\":370},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/2026\/125706\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"PM extends austerity drive till June 13 to deal with impact of Middle East war\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/\",\"name\":\"Nation\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/#\/schema\/person\/27efa35fa76e99f3ad7e7397d7332c16\",\"name\":\"humza Jahangir\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/43feedd99bd6a90080d1621b7e6604364acb673ee979d3ffe5075557c14c68b9?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/43feedd99bd6a90080d1621b7e6604364acb673ee979d3ffe5075557c14c68b9?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"humza Jahangir\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/author\/humza\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"PM extends austerity drive till June 13 to deal with impact of Middle East war - Nation","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/nationaltimes.pk\/eng\/2026\/125706\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"PM extends austerity drive till June 13 to deal with impact of Middle East war - Nation","og_description":"ISLAMABAD(National Times)-Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Monday extended the countrywide austerity drive till June 13. 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