The secretarial committee reviewing pay hike proposals for government employees has not included provisions such as timescale and selection grade in its recommendations.
This was revealed by Finance Minister AMA Muhith yesterday when he was talking to reporters after a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Public Purchase.
He said that no decision on the recommendations of the review committee can be made before June 4 because everyone will be busy with the placing of the budget in parliament for the upcoming fiscal.
In December last year, the National Pay and Services Commission (NPSC) recommended that the lowest pay for public servants should be Tk8,200 and the highest Tk1 lakh.
But the review committee, who, according to the minister, has already submitted its report, said the lowest grade should be Tk8,250 and the highest Tk90,000. Muhith however said yesterday that he had still not gotten the time to have a close look at the review committee’s report.
The minister also said the government wanted to reduce the number of pay grades to 16 from the 20 grades recommended by the NPSC. “But we have decided to keep it at 20 because the matter is complicated.”
Asked whether the pay hike for public servants will put inflationary pressure on the economy, the minister replied in the negative.
“No, no. I do not agree with the statement. There was no commodity inflation when the last pay scale was implemented in 2009,” he said.
According to sources, the government is mostly likely to allocate Tk15,000 crore in the upcoming FY2015-16 budget to finance pay hikes for public servants. This amount will be spent only to pay the salaries of the government employees. But there is still no word on whether the government will make additional allocations in the budget for covering the NPSC’s allowance hike recommendations.
The secretarial review committee was asked to find out whether it would be possible to implement the new pay scale on July 1.
However, Finance Minister Muhith yesterday said tthe new pay scale is likely to be implemented in two phases, and the announcement in this regard might come sometime between June and August.
Pohela Boishakh bonus
The review committee has recommended a bonus on the occasion of Pohela Boishakh, the Bangla New Year.
Just like what is given before religious festivals such as the two Eids and Durga Puja, if this recommendation is implemented, the government employees will get half of their basic salary as bonus during this secular cultural festival.
Apart from this, the other eight allowances proposed by the pay commission have been kept the same by the review committee, headed by Cabinet Secretary Mosharraf Hossain Bhuiyan. The review committee has also recommended scrapping the existing provision to allow army personnel to come and work on deputation in public offices.
