Finance minister: Govt to bring all 160m people under pension scheme

Finance Minister AMA Muhith has said the government is planning to bring the country’s all 160 million people under a national pension scheme. He made the remark while launching an online pension system for retired government employees, at his office in Dhaka on Thursday. “I am mulling over bringing all the people of the country under a national pension scheme. An outline of this scheme will be proposed in the next budget,” the minister said. Mentioning the advantages of online pension distribution, Muhith said currently, some 697,212 government employees are receiving state pensions. “From now on their state pension will go directly to their respective accounts with an alert in their mobile phones.” The minister said he was extremely happy to see improvement in the pension disbursement system. “We will gradually bring all retired government employees under this newly launched system.” Finance Secretary Muslim Chowdhury said: “We are trying to incorporate tax payment in the online system as well. Once we are done with the process, there will be no discrepancy between banks and the National Board of Revenue.” Among others, former cabinet secretary HT Imam and former finance secretaries Zakir Ahmed Khan and Siddiqur Rahman were present at the program.This article was first published on banglatribune.com