Cabinet approves new pay structure [ Tritiyo Matra News ]

Cabinet approves new pay structure

Local September 08, 2015

The cabinet on Monday approved the new pay structure for the government employees fixing the maximum monthly salary at Tk 86,000, up from Tk 45,000 and the minimum basic pay at Tk 8,250,up from Tk 4,100.
The new pays would be effective from July 1, 2015 but the perks from July 2016, cabinet secretary Muhammad Musharraf Hossain Bhuiyan told reporters after the cabinet meeting, held in the secretariat.
The new pay structure abolished timescales and selection grades and introduced the system of automatic adding of annual increments by 3.75 to five per cent of basic pay at cumulative rates.
It retained 20 grades of pay for the government employees.
Secretaries and other officers placed in Grade- 1 would get the consolidated monthly pay of Tk 78,000.
Tk 8,250 is the initial basic pay for the Grade 20 employees.
The cabinet secretary, the principal secretary to the prime minister and the three service chiefs would get the consolidated maximum monthly salary of Tk86,000.
Senior secretaries and armed forces officers of equal rank would get the consolidate monthly salary of Tk 82,000.
House rent support at enhanced rates would be paid to the government servants from July but the other perks at increased rates would be paid from July 2016, said the cabinet secretary.
Implementation of the new pay structure would cost the government an additional expenditure of Tk 23828.17 crore.
The cabinet secretary said the ranks of the chiefs of the navy and the air force would be upgraded to the level of the army chief so that all the service chiefs could get equal pay.
He said that the timescales and selection grades had been abolished as they were ‘discriminatory’.
He also said that on July 1 all the government servants would get their annual increments and not according to
their joining dates. He said this system had been introduced to remove the disparities.
But the low paid employees demanded retention of the timescales and selection grades which automatically put them in the next grades of pay as they enjoy limited or no promotion opportunities.
The cabinet meeting chaired by the prime minister approved the pay structure placed by the finance division on the basis of the recommendations from the Pay and Services Commission, the armed forces pay committee and the secretary-level committee, said the cabinet secretary.
The government employees’ salaries were last enhanced in 2009.
Pay and Service Commission chairman Farshuddin Ahjmed submitted the recommendations for enhancing governmet employees pay and perks in December 2014.
The secretary level committee chaired by the cabinet secretary submitted its recommendations on the issue to the ministry of finance in May.
The cabinet secretary said that the current classification of government employees as Class I, Class II, Class III and Class IV had been abolished by the new pay structure.
He said the teachers and employees of non-government schools and colleges drawing their salaries under the government’s monthly pay order, in short MPO, would get the enhanced salaries under the new pay structure from July 1, after review of their cases relating to inclusion in the MPO.
He said that the cabinet asked a cabinet committee to address disparities in the salary structure , particularly the issues raised by the public university teachers.
He also said that some of the ‘basic issues’, raised by the university teachers were beyond the jurisdiction of the pay commission.
The university teachers are demanding a separate pay structure for themselves.
The new pay structure introduced 20 per cent of basic pay as the festival allowance for Pahela Baisakh, the Bangla New Year.
Henceforth, government employees would get 90 per cent of the last basic pay as pension, up from 80 per cent.
The officers and employees in the 20th to the 6th grade would get five per cent of their basic pay as annual increments.
Those in the 5th grade would get 4.5 per cent of their basis pay as annual increments while 3rd and 4th grade employees would get four per cent and the 2nd graders — 3.75 per cent as increments at cumulative rates, the cabinet secretary said.