The government is likely to announce 20% dearness allowance for its 1.1m employees, in a bid to ease the inflationary pressure, official sources said.
The two or three increments of salaries of government officials and employees were not helpful for maintaining their living standard, Finance Minister AMA Muhith had told the Dhaka Tribune before Eid.
He had also said the salaries of government staffs should increase which would give them some financial comfort, a step he had hoped might be taken within the next two months.
Sources in the Prime Minister’s Office said Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina may make a formal announcement on dearness allowance when she will inaugurate a renovated 100-bed government employees’ hospital beside the Railway Hospital at Fulbaria in Dhaka on August 27.
The government has a plan to constitute a permanent pay commission, but finance division officials are in doubt whether it will be declared before the Awami League-led government leaves the office.
They also said the finance minister had initially approved the proposal of dearness allowance, which is minimum Tk2,000 and maximum Tk5,000 to help public servants cope with the inflation, which marked a slight fall to 7.78% in July.
This will cost the exchequer Tk50bn.
President of Bangladesh Secretariat Karmachari Oikyo Parishad (a platform of secretariat employees) Abul Kudus Khan told the Dhaka Tribune the government’s delay in announcing the new pay scale has created resentment among officials.
“The finance minister promised us that the government will announce the new pay scale in September,” he said.
The government has not kept any block allocation in the current fiscal’s budget to meet the new pay scale which will require the government to spend Tk2.5bn every month in addition to regular salary.
The government announced the seventh national pay scale in 2009 fixing the highest salary at Tk40,000 and lowest at Tk4,100. The last pay scale has come up with a 52% increase, on an average, in the basic salary of public servants. This enhanced pay scale requires the government an additional amount of Tk62.22bn annually.